Here at my little farm in the coastal mountains of central California, I
try to use Organic and IPM methods. From reading various publications, I
find that I can spray dormant fruit and nut trees with copper or lime
sulfur and still qualify to sell the fruits and nuts as organic. However, I
cannot use Roundup under the trees to control weeds or poisoned bait to
kill gophers and ground squirrels. "Chemicals" is not a particularly useful
word in agriculture. Virtually everything around us is made up of chemicals.