In response to Medhat:

I can tell you that no one around here would care one way or another.  

We produce a million tons of corn every three years in addition to our bees and other food production (non GMO corn, zero spray potatoes, dried soup beans...Black Turtle Beans and the like).  Soybeans are grown the two years in between.  Deer and Geese do more damage to our crops than insects.  Most of the farmers in our area (not many in total but we are an urban county) grow non-GMO crops.  We are moving from GMO but towards non-certified organic rather than convention non-GMO heavy spray.  Trying to get them to leave behind the herbicides would be a no go.   Pesticides though...no need really, just not enough pests pressuring corn-bean-wheat  or corn-whet/bean-corn rotations.  Everyone follows rotations which decreases your pest pressure.

We do not treat for potato beetles in our potatoes either.  We have a narrow 300 acres which runs a full mile in length and each year we rotate the potatoes to either end and then plant a rotation of either beens or open pollinated corn both of which provide a poor host crop for the beetles.  If we plant early enough we have a decent crop prior to major leaf damage the retards growth.  In the end we lose more potatoes to wire worms than we do CPB.  We will never be completely rid of the CPB because we have natural nightshade that grows in the upper levels of our farm that is near impossible to get rid of completely. The pressures though due to rotation seem to work so far.  We grow five acres currently and hope to double that.

Diversification I suppose is another reason why we do things the way we do.  We accept some level of loss.  If we loose 15% of our potato crop it doesn't hurt us, because we also produce a ton of honey, and a ton of black beans, and 4 tons of open pollinated corn which we mill into cornmeal, and 4 tons of lettuce and micro greens, and mustard and kale, and we board horses and we compost manure.  All of it provides a piece to the puzzle.  People claim we cannot feed the world this way that we NEED to monocrop, but I disagree, I am producing more food now and making more money than I ever did growing a single crop.

If you are not diversified and grow the same crop year after year I am not too sure what the answer is ...you need to spray since you have removed all other options.

Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106
http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com
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