The Fruitguys News: Mothra versus California

Mothra versus California

Posted on March 02, 2008

In "Mothra Vs. Godzilla," Mothra devastates a city while in its larval stage only to re-emerge from its cocoon to join Batra in the fight against Godzilla. Together they save society at large and the terrified citizens go from fear of Mothra to understanding and living in harmony with it.

Well, Mothra has come to California.

Last week, FruitGuy Bridget Meigs wrote about the Light Brown Apple Moth larva that threatens to damage our agriculture and the planned August aerial spraying over urban populations in California (including the Bay Area) in an attempt to eradicate it. The FruitGuys has launched an online resource for our readers who are interested in learning more about this issue. For complete disclosure, I am a San Francisco resident with small children and am thus predisposed to not being sprayed with a pheromone-chemical mix that may have caused respiratory distress when applied to urban areas in central California last fall. However, I also greatly value honest and truthful information and when faced with new data I want to investigate it in order to understand all perspectives. My goal is to develop a resource on our website that looks at all sides of this issue in order to determine what is real, what is hype, what the options are to deal with Mothra, and what is ultimately, in my opinion, the safest choice.

It was eye opening for me to hear this week from some of our organic and sustainable farmers that while they are concerned about potential health risks associated with CheckMate (the spray) they have greater concerns about the potential damage the moth could do if measures are not taken now to eradicate it. Some expressed that if it is not sprayed for now it will inspire the increased use of a wide array of more harmful chemical pesticides across the state. Obviously it is a complicated issue and one I believe folks should be aware of.

Would you like to know more?? Do you have opinions about this? From here on out we'll refer folks to our website. Check out Bridget's latest report.

Now onto Fruit News:

West Coast: This week we've included a little organic treat in all the Organic and Harvest Flyer crates to shake up the seasonal doldrums: dried persimmons. They are a delightful surprise.

East Coast: Green and red grapes. Red light? Or green light? Now you don't have to make that tough decision when playing the fruit version of Freeze Tag amongst the cubicles.

For explanations and photos, please check out this week's fruit mix.