Sorry,your message seems confusing.I was told by a guy with a 5 year degree in fruitculture and horticulture that "dormant spray" is used to kill insects and bugs that lodge themselves in the trees. I should be used during the winter.It should be used before the bud-swelling. Most dormant sprays have a mineral oil base and kill by exposing the exterior body of insects and bugs to direct contact to the oil.Most bugs breathe thru the skin.Mineral oil will close the tiny orifices they breathe thru and kill them.In order to kill fungi, like the one that causes "curl leaf" in peaches and nectarines other type of mixtures must be used.Bordeax mix can be used to control most types of fungi, including the one that causes "curl leaf". You can mix Bordeux Mix yourself.You will need copper sulfate in powder form or crystal form, hydrated lime and water.Use the ratio: 10lbs copper sulfate,10lbs hydrated lime,100gallons of water. If you have only a few trees,just adjust the amounts, but keep the same ratio.You can buy these products in a country store or one that supplies agricultural stuff.I got mine out of state and thru the ebay.You can apply 2 to 3 times at regular intervals before bud-swelling. There is a large spectrum of products pre-mixed and sold in regular stores like OSH,Homedepot,Lowes,etc..etc.They sell most of the time in concentrated form. Make sure to follow directions in diluting.You shoud use a true sprayer for trees.They sell them in OSH,Homedepot,Lowes,etc....Never use water sprayer used to spray fertilizer.I prefer to use Bordeax mix because I know it works.It was invented over 100 years in France to combact the American fungus that destroyed Vineyards.Since then has been used in the Old Continent in vineyards and orchards to kill all kinds of fungi.Many of the mixtures sold here in the states are ineffective and expensive.Good luck next time.Jim of bugs

Fruitgirl is correct. Although the main organic certifying agency OMRI does somewhat take into account health risks. As I recall they currently don't allow Rotenone. Synthetic doesn't automatically mean safer either. There are some synthetic products that I would judge safer than some organic, and vice versa. It's really a judgment call that can include a lot of factors: acute toxicity, carcinogenic potential (which is also an issue for natural substances) reproductive issues, and of course the effect on the environment. Here is a site you can look up some of that info. for just about any pesticide. I' reluctant to post this site, because I think they are a bit alarmist. Their attitude seems, the only good pesticide is a banned pesticide. For instance, even the organic pesticide spinosad, they list as a possible endoctrine distruptor, and possible developmental toxin. Nevertheless, they do have some good hard data on each pesticide. Also residue levels can be an indication of toxicity potential. The Maximum Residue Levels Database are internationally accepted levels of pesticide residues on food crops, or in the case of the U.S., FDA accepted residue levels. For example, Spinosad has a Max residue level of 0.2ppm and Triazicide (gamma cyhalothrin)has a MRL of 0.5ppm. Of course there are other factors involved (i.e. how fast the pesticide breaks down) Organic pesticides generally break down faster which gives less of a residue, but also means it must be applied more frequently. Ultimately, you have to make the decision what to use, but to try to give some specific answer to your question, synthetic pyrethroids are considered one of the safer insecticides to humans, compared to other insecticides.

Just a final follow-up on my sprayer search. Mark's (wheresmypension) comments about a backpack as a better alternative got me thinking, and I would up buying a really top quality SP2 4-gallon backpack from Northern Tool. I've now used it on two outings, and find it is extremely easy, highly flexible in that you just walk into whatever area you waant and control spray very tightly. The weight is really not at all bothersome, and the pumping is easy with a very short stroke with a nice steel lever that falls right to hand - pump about once every 5 seconds per book. Very high potential pressure (180pounds) for high trees, etc. although I won't be doing that much if at all. After my first use, I was on their web site and found that they offer a very interesting option - a boom to attach to the spray wand (in 20, 40 and 60 inch lengths). I have one coming now, and figure that will solve the question of covering the larger open areas of lawn with few passes, and possibly, I will just ride my LT around and hold the wand/boom :) One of my hangups with the tow-behinds was that the quality of the products in the under $400 range seemed pretty suspect, with various reviewers complaining about leaks, wiring issues and pumps going bad. The SP products really do appear to be top grade, and the package of sprayer, wand, boom, spray shield for control in tight quarters, will total up to something less than $200 delivered.

This is actually a pretty thought-provoking thread. I would like first to commend Carolyn on pointing to one of my favorite resources, extoxnet. Extoxnet is a collaboration of several well-respected universities (and certainly not corporate whores), synthesizing all of the available objective testing of these various chemicals. While I'm not trying to illegitimatize the premises of those who choose not to use synthetic chemicals (as I think Bigdaddy would attest, following a former back-and-forth we had on insecticides), I think it's extremely important to look at all the OBJECTIVE data in coming to conclusions on chemicals. Most synthetic chemicals, especially the old ones (e.g. Sevin) are extremely well-tested. Daconil, however, is probably one of the lesser-tested pesticides. Korney - you are also to be commended for putting all things in perspective on what home-use Daconil is. It very much DOES matter what the concentration is. After all, arsenic exists naturally in potatoes; cyanide in lima beans. There are many, many other examples. Hoosier, I respect your position and I, myself, try to avoid most synthetic chemicals until some other means fails. However, citing scorecard.org, a wing of the propagandist Green Media Toolshed (I encourage anyone to visit Green Media's mission statement as a reference) as your authority hurts your credibility somewhat (much like when my little brother attacks genetically modified plants by citing gmwatch.org). Such organizations (another example is the Pesticides Action Network) cherry pick the tests that serve their interests. It is similar, albeit on the opposite side of the debate, to relying only upon, say, Dow Chemical's testing to make your point. When comparing such a source to objective testing presented by extoxnet, extoxnet inevitably wins the credibility battle. Having said all of this, it is interesting that extoxnet reveals that chlorothalonil has only slight toxicity to mammals (mostly skin and eye irritation, both of which can be avoided by the most simple protective measures), the possibility to be carcinogenic in very high doses, a fairly moderate persistence in soil, and an unlikelihood to affect groundwater. With the testing available thus far, I will not hesitate to use Daconil sparingly, after a problem has arisen (and quite honestly, this is rare for me, and only on ornamentals; I don't have a lot of vegetable plantings at this time). The objective evidence simply doesn't suggest that limited home use will cause any appreciable damage to health or the environment. Finally, since DDT was mentioned, it is interesting that DDT was found to contribute, I recall, to only something like one single human death worldwide (a very unusual circumstance contributed to this). Also, it was not found to contribute to egg shell thinning, as was originally suspected. Interestingly, however, while pre-DDT malaria deaths (e.g., in Africa) were literally hundreds of thousands of times greater than when DDT was in widespread use, once DDT was initially banned in many such countries, malaria deaths rose, again, to pre-DDT levels. At least two scientists who recently wrote to the University of Iowa alumni magazine claimed that literally millions of human malaria deaths would have been prevented had DDT remained in use for mosquitoes, with no appreciable environmental impact. I think it is illustrative of the dangers of taking a "zero-tolerance" chemical attitude - allowing this attitude to trump both the hard evidence and the value of human life. Sorry if this is a little off-topic from Vince's initial post, but it helps to put things into perspective. Vince - it's ultimately up to you, but I see no reason you can't spray sparingly with a clear conscience.