What pesticides are generally used when growing strawberries?
The strawberry is a perennial herbaceous plant. As early as the first century AD, the strawberry appeared in poetry and prose, but at that time the strawberry was merely an ordinary ornamental plant, very small in size, and not the same thing as today's strawberry. It was not until more than 400 years ago that the strawberry began to be artificially crossbred, thus giving rise to the strawberry we eat now. So what pesticides are used during the growing of strawberries? Let's explore this together.
1. What pesticides are used on strawberries
The pesticides most commonly used on strawberries are herbicides and insecticides. The insecticides include trichlorfon, phoxim, and pirimicarb, among others, while the herbicides include 48% trifluralin emulsifiable concentrate, 80% diphenamid wettable powder, 50% napropamide wettable powder, and others.
Trichlorfon is a broad-spectrum insecticide with strong stomach-poison and contact-killing effects, and it belongs to a class of neurotoxic agents. It is low in toxicity to humans and livestock and low in toxicity to ladybugs, but it is highly toxic to other natural enemies such as parasitic wasps and predatory mites. It controls various tussock moths, noctuid moths, and the like on strawberries. Phoxim is a broad-spectrum, low-toxicity, low-residue organophosphorus insecticide; it works well against older larvae of lepidopteran pests and soil pests, and it can also kill eggs and spider mites. Pirimicarb (pirimor) is a specific aphicide; this agent has a special effect on aphids, and after application the aphids are poisoned and die within a few minutes.
Trifluralin is a systemic, selective, pre-emergence dinitroaniline soil-treatment herbicide used for weed control in orchards; it can control annual grass weeds, seed-propagated perennial weeds, and some broadleaf weeds. Diphenamid wettable powder has a control efficacy of over 90% against annual monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous weeds, and it is generally diluted with water into a 500-fold solution and sprayed between the rows. Napropamide wettable powder can control a variety of annual grass, sedge, and broadleaf weeds; like diphenamid, it is diluted with water into a 500-fold solution and sprayed between the rows.
2. The harm of pesticides on strawberries
The US environmental organization the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a “pesticide residue” list. The data on the list came from the US Department of Agriculture, based on test results for pesticide residues in 38,800 common agricultural products. Among them, strawberries, with an average of 5 kinds of pesticide residues and a maximum of 22 kinds, topped the “dirtiest” list for three consecutive years. But regarding the issue of pesticide spraying, simply discussing the amount of pesticide residue is not very useful; more importantly, it still depends on the dose to determine. However, it is also an indisputable fact that strawberries have pesticide residues. Because strawberries are a crossbred variety, a great many pesticides need to be sprayed throughout the entire growing period; as for the residues, they are actually not much different from those of other fruits and vegetables. Even so, when eating strawberries, everyone still needs to wash them clean before eating.
The above is some related knowledge about pesticides on strawberries. Spraying as few pesticides as possible during the strawberry growing period is the best way to remove pesticide residues.