Chemical Use Survey
Chemical Use Survey. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.
The USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service will survey fruit growers in 11 states, including Oregon and Washington, for its biennial Fruit Chemical Use Survey. Chris Mertz, director of the NASS Northwest Regional Field Office.
MERTZ: We select a variety of sizes and types of food operations. In Oregon, we are focusing on apples, blackberries, blueberries, sweet cherries, pears and raspberries. While in Washington we have apples, blueberries, sweet and tart cherries, wine grapes and juice grapes, pears and raspberries and we are collecting information on those food items, their fertilizer applications for those crops and the pesticide application for those crops, too.
Mertz talks about what they are looking for.
MERTZ: We find out how much active ingredients that are applied to the acres in the various states. What I like about this survey, we have people that are interested in making sure that producers have the products available so they can farm. They like us to provide the third-party objective source information while the other people that are looking at maybe limiting the use of pesticides, they like us to collect that information and publish it too.
Survey results will be published in NASS's online database, Quick Stats, in July 2016.
That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.
