12/12/07 AZM Stewardship Part 2

AZM Stewardship Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Sometimes it is good to get a bit of a scare. It tends to make you a bit more cautious. The tree fruit industry has been scared lately with the thought of losing on of its best weapons, Guthion. Overall it does the best and cheapest job of dealing with insects that can ruin a crop. The EPA has been looking at phasing out Guthion but recently has said it will keep it available for use through 2012 provided the industry spends some time on education. Mana, the company that is now registering Guthion has taken this task seriously according to Elliot Gordon a consultant for Mana. GORDON: There's nothing new in what we're trying to say. All we're really trying to do is change the habits of the workers. In other words, the work protection standard is very clear to maintain safety. You know you wash your clothes  all these things and the problem is that they don't always do that. Gordon is the manager of MANA's AZM Stewardship program and what they found was that good materials already existed. They have worked to pull this existing information together to make workers more aware and that is really what the EPA was after. GORDON: With Guthion at a certain application rate and certain hand thinning operations you calculate a certain residue and that's not going to change. Whatever we do is not going to change the residues but what we'll do is sort of reduce the residual residues as they leave the fields and get home and so that they will be less residue taken home and less residue on their person after they finish the work. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.