Wax Apple Flower Forcing 02: Illegal Pesticide Use for 40 Years, Government Knew and Did Nothing! Agricultural Research Station Offers a Solution: Thin Out the Trees, No Spraying Needed to Force Flowers

(Continued from previous article) The wax apple industry has been using organophosphate insecticides to force flowering for more than forty years. Chlorpyrifos and Fenitrothion, which are neurotoxic, are sprayed at extremely high concentrations. The impact on the environment and ecology is difficult to measure, and it directly harms farmers' own health, yet the government has consistently turned a blind eye.

If pesticide flower forcing is truly so necessary, why not simply apply for legal use on wax apple? Huang Chi-cho, associate researcher at the Fengshan Branch of the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, answered, "Pesticide companies have to go to the Taiwan Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute to apply, and only then will they conduct trials. You have to complete three rounds of trials before you can register." Completing three rounds of trials might cost 600,000 to 1,000,000, and no pesticide company is willing to do it. Moreover, "if people will buy it without registration, why bother to apply?"

Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute: High-Concentration Spraying Is Unreasonable, Never Formally Assessed

Chiang Yung-cheng, head of the Pesticide Application Division at the Taiwan Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute, said, "This problem has existed for a long time. Related issues have been discussed before," but afterwards nothing came of it. She confirmed that neither Fenitrothion nor Chlorpyrifos used for flower forcing falls within the approved scope of use.

"Regardless of whether it is within the scope of use, spraying at such a high concentration is simply unreasonable," Chiang Yung-cheng said. Normal pesticide use goes through layer upon layer of safety assessment, including the safety of the sprayer, product residues, effects on non-target organisms in the environment, as well as efficacy and phytotoxicity to plants. But the use of insecticides for flower forcing on wax apple has never been formally assessed.

Chiang Yung-cheng also pointed out that the risks of Chlorpyrifos have recently drawn international attention, and our country has also tightened restrictions on its use. Even if someone applied to use it for flower forcing on wax apple, it is unlikely that the scope of use would be expanded or extended.

Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine: Insecticide Flower Forcing Is Illegal Use, Chlorpyrifos Will Soon Be Banned for All Fruits and Vegetables, Alternatives Will Be Sought

Feng Hai-tung, Director-General of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, said he had heard of organophosphate agents being used for flower forcing on wax apple. "Our position is that this is basically illegal use." He believes that spraying at such high concentrations has relatively little impact on the fruit produced, but a greater impact on the environment.

Feng Hai-tung also pointed out that many uses of Chlorpyrifos on fruits and vegetables have already been removed, and the plan is to remove all of them in the future. By then, its use against wax apple mealybugs will also be deleted, so Chlorpyrifos will be completely prohibited on wax apple, and Fenitrothion was never allowed to begin with. "We may need to ask horticultural experts at the research stations to find some alternatives. There are other techniques that can be used, so we don't have to keep relying on this practice."

Flower Forcing Is the Crystallization of Farmers' Wisdom, but the Methods Should Keep Pace with the Times

Tseng Te-tsu, Emeritus Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at National Chung Hsing University, stated bluntly that using organophosphate agents to force flowers "has no scientific basis at all and does not conform to pesticide use regulations." If someone assumes that because Chlorpyrifos can be used on wax apple to kill insects, it is therefore fine to use it for flower forcing, that is exploiting a legal loophole. He also pointed out the crisis: "Forcing flowers this way every year will make the trees weaker and weaker, until they eventually die, because it is essentially poisoning them. In order to survive and reproduce, they bloom."

The wax apple industry's practice of drinking poison to quench thirst does not stop at pesticide flower forcing. In the past, some farmers, in order to imitate the black pearl variety grown in coastal saline soil, deliberately brought in seawater to irrigate, resulting in cases of soil salinization and dead fruit trees.

Flower forcing technology is indeed the crystallization of farmers' wisdom, allowing wax apple to be produced almost year-round, with the production period adjustable at will. But excessive flower forcing methods also leave the fruit trees severely damaged and shorten their productive lifespan. After the wax apple production area peaked at 10,502 hectares in Year 76 of the Republic of China, it declined steadily, and by Year 107 only 3,414 hectares remained.

The reasons for this are that the cumbersome flower forcing techniques require large amounts of labor and high material costs, and when quality does not reach a certain standard, farmers may lose money. Moreover, wax apple trees, worn down year after year and forced against their nature, easily become weakened and are hard-pressed to withstand increasingly frequent and severe climate change. On top of that, the season for forcing early flowers coincides with typhoons and torrential rain, which repeatedly devastate the harvest.

Kaohsiung Agricultural Improvement Station: Thin Out the Trees, and They Will Flower Without Spraying

So is it possible to maintain tree health, save costs, and still get a good harvest? Even without spraying insecticides to force flowers? The answer is: yes. Lai Jung-mao, associate researcher at the Kaohsiung District Agricultural Improvement Station and the most senior domestic researcher on wax apple, has worked hard in recent years to promote an innovative pruning method called "thinning out the trees," and has cooperated with farmers in trials with considerable results.

"Many people couldn't force early flowers well this year, but I'd say I forced them quite well!" Chang Ching-yu said with pride. She parted the leaves to reveal clusters of pink fruit in bags. Here, the wax apple trees are not sprayed with Chlorpyrifos or Fenitrothion to force flowers, yet they still bear abundant fruit, breaking the industry's forty-year habit of believing that "spraying pesticides to force flowers is necessary."

This is the "Grass-Fed" farm in Fangliao, Pingtung. As the name suggests, it uses sod culture and replaces pesticides with organically permitted materials as much as possible. It also releases natural enemy beneficial insects for ecological pest control, achieves zero pesticide residues year after year, and counts many cancer patients among its regular customers.

Chang Ching-yu said that flowers come even without spraying. The secret is nothing other than doing what the teacher says. The teacher is Lai Jung-mao, wax apple expert at the Kaohsiung District Agricultural Improvement Station, who in recent years has vigorously promoted the "thinning out the trees" pruning method. It overturns the past tradition of no longer "shaving the tree bald" or heavy pruning, preserving the tree's natural shape. The trees not only become healthier, but also have a good flowering rate, and will flower without pesticide spraying.

Forcing Too Many Flowers Will Make You Cry From Thinning Them, "Heavy Pruning" Is What Most Needs to Change

Most wax apple farmers believe that insecticides must be sprayed to force flowers, so that the flowers come out uniformly, in one burst rather than sporadically, making them easier to manage.

But Lai Jung-mao debunks the myth: "A single tree produces more than 20,000 flowers. You only need to keep within 200 clusters, which means keeping only 1% of the flowers. You have to thin out 99%!" This is not only extremely labor-intensive, but also wastes the tree's energy. "Nowadays there's a labor shortage. Just thinning flowers alone will make you cry."

In other words, forcing a whole tree full of flower buds may look impressive, but it is actually the beginning of a nightmare. Lai Jung-mao believes that simply changing the pruning method can still force out enough flowers, without necessarily needing to spray, and farmers can absolutely reduce costs. "The pesticide concentration is too high. First, farmers are endangered, the costs are heavy, and the damage to the trees is also heavy."

In order to change wax apple from naturally producing summer fruit to producing winter fruit, wax apple farmers developed various flower forcing techniques: shaving the tree bald, flooding, root pruning, girdling, covering with black netting, spraying pesticides... All of these are meant to create stress, giving the fruit trees a sense of crisis so they want to reproduce, that is, to flower and bear fruit. But if too many of these methods are too drastic, they easily deplete the fruit trees' vitality.

Among them, Lai Jung-mao believes the most urgently needed changes are "shaving the tree bald" and "heavy pruning." "In the past, people pruned very heavily and cut a lot, so the fruit trees would grow many new branches and leaves, and then require a lot of suppression to shift into a flowering state." Lai Jung-mao explained that he now advises farmers to prune only lightly, renewing just thirty percent of the leaves each time, and the canopy must be able to let light through. "This way the tree is more stable, and it is actually easier to reach a flowering state."

Maintain the Natural Tree Shape; Only With Stable Tree Vigor Can There Be Good Quality

Lai Jung-mao showed a photo of a tree after it had been shaved bald. "This is like the whole water pipe being cut off." Afterwards, dense, messy new shoots sprout from the cut surface. "The result of shaving the tree bald is that the leaves that grow out are very small, and photosynthesis is weak. Several small leaves are not as good as one large leaf." Such new leaves not only fail to produce sufficient nutrients, but also waste the tree's nutrients.

So Lai Jung-mao proposed a revolutionary pruning method: "thinning out the trees." That is, maintain the fruit tree's natural shape, but cut out spaces within it that let light through and wind pass, making the whole tree clearly layered and refreshing. The key point is that a few branches must be left at the top to grow freely, rather than all being cut short, so that when "root pressure" rises, it can be released level by level.

[Appearance features of stable tree vigor] The upper canopy remains highest in the center and decreases in height in all directions, with branches growing outward in a radiating, upward-slanting direction. Branch spacing is sparse, light can penetrate, and the tips of branches and trunks maintain a natural ending

Lai Jung-mao interacts frequently with farmers and further explains using farmers' terminology: "Within the hard framework, soft branches must be allowed," "The hard-framed ones must be left with a tail," "The cut must be kept away from the tail."

He emphasized that pruning is a "basic skill," and change must start from the basic skill. With the old "heavy pruning" approach, "the more you prune, the more it wants to grow, causing the tree to become unstable, which drives instability in quality and instability in income." For example, the fruit cracking rate remains high, which is why the wax apple industry has gone downhill. Therefore Lai Jung-mao stressed, "This must be dealt with first. It is the top priority."

[Wrong pruning method] A large number of new shoots sprout, and leaf quality is poor