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"Fusarium Wilt is like the Great White Shark of the soil," saysGee. "It's floating around in there, and then it just gobbles upyour plants." Organic strawberry growers don't fumigate. They stay a step aheadof diseases by moving from field to field. This also means thatthey only get to grow strawberries on a particular field once everythree to five years, or sometimes even longer. Yet evenCalifornia's organic strawberry growers buy their plants fromnurseries that do use fumigation. Nobody wants to run the risk ofbringing diseased plants into their fields. This technology has done wonders for strawberry production. Butit's under attack. And it may have to change. The most powerful fumigant methyl bromide is supposed to be phased out gradually because it can eat away at Earth's ozone layer. It'sstill used under a " critical use exemption" that the Environmental Protection Agency has obtained each year. Also, regulators are telling growers to move their fields and theirfumes further away from homes and schools. Lea Brooks, aspokesperson for California's Department of Pesticide Regulation , says that's squeezing the strawberry fields. "People are movingcloser to farmland, and hence the conflicts," she says. "It'simportant to find alternatives to fumigants because in the futurethere will be additional restrictions, not less." Brooks and I are inspecting some of those possible alternatives ina research field that the California Strawberry Commission has set up near Watsonville, California. Dan Legard, the commission's Director of Research and Education, isin charge of this work. "As you look at the field, it looks like aregular strawberry field. You don't see any difference," he pointsout. This field has the same raised beds covered with black plastic,with strawberry plants poking out of holes in the plastic. What you can't see, though, is the fact that these plants aren'tactually rooted in soil at all. They're growing in a foot-widetrough that's been pressed into the top of each bed, lined withfabric, and filled with peat or something called coconut coir the fibers from the outside of a coconut. Legard walks over to one bed and pulls out a handful of coconutcoir. It's black and sponge-like, a little bit like peat. It mimics soil's ability to hold water, but it's not soil. Which isthe point. There aren't any frightening fungi in there, so there'sno need for fumigants drive those pathogens away. There are other approaches as well. Some have used the heat of the sun to sterilize the soil. Others are experimenting with mixing ground-up seeds of canola plants into the soil. Those seeds release a chemicalthat suppresses harmful fungi for a while. But commercial strawberry growers are skeptical about all of thesemethods. The ones that work reliably like growing plants incoconut coir are really expensive, and the ones that are cheapsometimes fail. "It may work four out of five times, and that looks great to aresearcher," says Dan Legard. "But that means twenty percent of thegrowers fail. And no grower's going to take that twenty percentchance when he's investing a million dollars." So for now, most of California's strawberry growers are stickingwith the chemicals. It's been a key to their success in producingmore strawberries, for a lower cost, than anywhere else in theworld. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Solar Torch Led Manufacturer , China Electronic Calendar Clock, and more. For more , please visit Anti Radiation Headset today!
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