Re: dormant oil

Moira writes:
>
>Can you also throw any light on why lime sulphur is now a no-no in
>organic practice? I have never heard of this before, and have used it
>for various problems over the years believing I was being ecologically
>responsible.
>
One guess is that there is some confusion between it's benign effect on the
environment and its  dangerous immediate toxicity at the time of mixing and
application. Here in the USA, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
classifies immedite toxicty into four categories and lime sulfur falls into
Class II, the class right below poisons. You'll find the word Danger on its
label -- which is an EPA required term. This is because it is extremely
corrosive and can damage eyes, skin, and lungs. One must be well covered,
including rubber gloves, goggles and breathing mask when applying it.

I find a lot of folks get mixed up because horticulture oil has little to
no immediate toxicity and  marketing info on packages make it seem like the
oils and the lime sulfur are almost the same products. One will say
"dormant oil spray" and the other "dormant spray" (the lime sulfur). A
person might have used the oils for years and someone says to also use the
lime sulfur. They read the big print, not the fine print, and assume they
don't have to dress differently.

Getting back to the Toxicity Classes. Here, four different words appear on
labels that signify a product's immediate toxicity. They are -- in
increasing levels of immediate toxicity -- Caution, Warning, Danger, and
Poison. Many who advocate an organic, common sense, less toxic, approach to
gardening will never use a product that is labeled with something other
than "Caution".

It can be real confusing to sort our the differences between immediate
toxicity during application and long term effects on the environment.

Carol


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