Waldemar wrote:

>Did not know blueberry bushes get sprayed.  What do they spray blueberries 
>for?

>We usually buy the smaller wild blueberries from Canada.  According to the 
>bag info, these don't get sprayed.

These are lowbush blueberries (the small ones) from Canada.  They are 
marketed as "wild blueberries".
They are "wild" insofar as they are not planted.  They grow naturally, but 
they are
"cultivated" by spraying all the competition.  Some competitors like 
bayberry and
alders are spot sprayed with roundup.  For some things, like grass, 
herbicides like
velpar are used that blueberries are tolerant to.

Before the flowering the fields are monitored with "sweep nets" and if the 
levels
of flea beetles get too high the fields will be sprayed with an insecticide 
before
the bees go in.  Also if a pest like banded geometer caterpillar gets 
started defoliating
plants they will be sprayed.

After flowering the main pests being monitored are flea beetles and 
blueberry
maggot.  The buyers may reject loads with too much blueberry maggot, so 
growers
generally play it safe.

In addition, blueberries can be subject to funguses and blight, so 
fungicides are sprayed.
At one time,  I was tolerant of this, thinking that fungicide spraying would 
not be
terribly detrimental to the bees.  Since the recent study of "entombed 
pollen" (see archives)
I will not be.  We are seeing quite a bit of "entombed pollen" (pollen 
contaminated
with chlorothalonil (Bravo, etc.) that the bees have tried to seal off with 
propolis.

I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me, but really, "wild" blueberries 
is a bit
of a joke.   There is such a thing as "organic" wild blueberries, but I 
imagine they
would be quite pricey.  It is also possible that they do not consider the 
*blueberries*
sprayed, if they only spot spray the competition in the field.  But it is 
very difficult
to establish blueberries without doing this.

As with much of spraying in agriculture consumers have to take much of the
blame for demanding perfect looking product.  I don't mind eating the odd 
blueberry
maggot.  But they're not as tasty as drone brood.

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