For my backyard vineyard, I wanted Admire Pro, but you need a permit for that, so I have Merit. It is 75% Imocloprid, and very effective for thripes, glassy winged sharpshooters, leaf miners, and leaf hoppers. Commercial vineyards use Admire Pro which has a higher concentration of Imocloprid, but Merit is just fine for me! Pricy, though. Works a lot better than soap!!

There is a thi8ng called Intergrated Pest Management. It basically says to inspect your garden daily for pests and see if there is another way of dealing with them, like picking off blackspotted leaves as they start. It also says is the problem big enough to need to use chemicals. I walk thru my rose garden everyday. This way I know what's going on. If I see bs starting on a plant I can pick off those leaves. if it is one plant that's worse than the others, yes, remove it. I dug up Peace for that reason. If you know you will have bs, start off the season with a good spray program and you won't have it at all. Unless it's raining all the time and you can't do it like what happened to me a few years ago! These are just some suggestions to help you.

Thanks Kate. I truly feel you are a very nice person! Many of us have strong opinions, and sometimes it is so hard when we read what someone else has written, because words can be blunt when conversation usually isn't. I know that I can be quite blunt, though I try harder now to see what I have written through someone else's eyes. Not always easy to do. Buford, the report does address the water issue under the section titled Environmental Fate Risk Assessment. However, most of the report has raised the question of homeowner safety, as you said. I know it is unbelievable for most of the people here, but there are knuckleheads out there who think if the directions say a Tablespoon per gallon, then 5 must be better. And then they dump the leftovers on the ground or down the drain instead of using the spray up on some plants. I'm telling you, they get all kinds down here. The report does address the liquid spray form of the chemical. I do know that the granules cause huge problems with the soil and water table, and many of the garden centers down here do not have it available. I don't know if it was banned here, or if some of them have chosen not to sell it. I agree with you about common household cleaners and such. Our house is very "tight", so I can't use most of them any more, and have had to switch to gentler products like baking soda. That too, can irritate skin, so I were gloves, but I had to quit using a lot of other things because we would go to bed at night and wake up sick. Some of the bathroom products have warning lables on them that exceed many of the garden spray products in toxicity, and they are usually going down the drain, ultimately getting into the water table some century. Opening windows helps, but I can't always do that or we would cook and melt simultaneously from heat and humidity. I am sorry if I have offended anybody. That was absolutely never my intention. I wanted to bring up a few points that I felt were important to consider and not meant to accuse anyone of being a "terrible" person. On the other hand, we are helping the environment by doing something good....we grow plants! Sandy

Look, the most likely diseases in this area to cause you any significant problems are fungal or bacterial diseases of foliage. You should first and foremost use good cultural practices to try to minimize the occurrence/impact of these diseases, i.e. mulch, grow resistent varieties, allow for adequate air flow, keep the plants otherwise healthy etc. Beyond that, the most common non-organic way to treat for these diseases is to spray a fungicide like daconil. There are, however, some organic fungicide choices. Both copper and sulphur sprays can be used as organic fungicides, but they have downsides. I've read of some decent results in using the broad-spectrum organic pesticide neem as a fungicide. There's a newer organic biological fungicide marketed as serenade or something like that which looks like it might be promising. Some people will also talk about spraying everything from milk to compost tea to varying concoctions involving baking soda etc. I have my doubts about these, although spraying compost tea certainly is unlikely to hurt the plant. Likewise, sprinkling cornmeal around your plants is unlikely to hurt. If you're going to grow organically, you need to be able to expect and tolerate some level of unpretty foliage occasionally and you need to not worry so much about "being prepared." Be prepared by building your soil, mulching etc., but don't get all worked up about how you're going to go about treating diseases which may or may not be a problem for you at all.