PCA/Doctor Nov 11

For California AG today, I'm Mike Stephens. We continue with Jeff Rasmussen, California pest control adviser. He notes that he's a plant doctor and chooses his plant, pest and disease control methods very carefully. He compares a PCA to a doctor and how they're similar.

We have clients, we observe what they do and their illnesses. And so for my example, I walk at tomato field and I see it has a late blight symptoms. And it's, you know, I explained to her it has a cough. And so I diagnose and I know the disease, the causal agent of this cough and I put on a fungicide that kills that fungus. You know, a child comes into your office doctor, you know, you monitor it, you observe and you diagnose and then you give that child medicine made from the same chemical company and add chemicals on the other. I said, Doctor, do you ever prescribe organic medicine? And she was a little perplexed. So I said, you know, because in the agriculture, you would want me to use, you know, something organic that's natural. What do you prescribe organically to your children that you, that you bring in, come into your office and I'll go one step further, doctor, when that child leaves, what does your staff do before another client comes into that office and sprays a specific chemical to kill a specific organism? That's a pesticide.