Re: dormant oil
The Bay Area Gardener wrote:
>
> 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
Thanks for explaining your regulations to me. Curiously, we used to have
a similar set of toxicity classes in NZ, but on packs intended for the
home gardener the tendency in recent years has been not to use these
classes, but merely to have a section on precautions included in the
label.
My pack of lime sulphur warns "Avoid contact with skin and inhalation of
spray mist. keep out of reach of children. Store away from foodstuffs.
Wash hands before meals and after work".
Which in view of your posting does not seem a very adequate assessment
of possible risk!
Mind you, compared with some of the products used in the home garden
thirty or forty years ago lime sulphur can be classed as pretty benign.
I have old advisory leaflets of that time from the Dept Of Agriculture
which are a real eyeopener, recommending such choice products as lead
arsenate and Blackleaf40 (a 40% solution of Nicotine sulphate, if I
remember rightly). I can also remember being able to buy arsenical
weedkiller freely, which was a favourite poison with thriller writers
was it not?
While still a columnist with our national gardening magazine I received
a letter from a male gardener bewailing the fact the could no longer get
the nicotine and saying he was endeavouring to reproduce it by soaking
cigarette butts in water. I hope I managed to convince him there are
safer substitutes!!!
Moira
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand
