Richard>why is there not a far greater risk from using one million pounds per year on citrus?


One argument (and I'm not supporting their usage) is that using antibiotics on trees is less risky in terms of the amount of non-target microorganism exposure.     

>Virginia Stockwell, a plant pathologist at the US Department of Agriculture in Corvallis, Oregon — and, with LeJeune, a co-author of a 2018 white paper on the environmental effects of antibiotics (see go.nature.com/2tbv6hi) — says that tree spraying poses less risk than does livestock dosing. “The microorganisms you find in soil are very different than what you find in a manure pile,” she says. “And the amount of antibiotics that those microorganisms in manure would be exposed to is higher, and would be more persistent, than you would have on a sprayed tree or on the soil beneath.”



Bill Hesbach
Cheshire CT

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