Good Fruit Grower

April 15

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Choose your poison carefully BUD 9 NIC ® 29 PAJAM 2 ® M.9 NAKB T-337 GENEVA 202/30/16/11 We also grow a great selection of rootstock varieties for apple, cherry, peach, pear and plum including: APPLE CHERRY PEACH PEAR PLUM MALUS ANTONOVKA MALUS DOLGO MALUS DOMESTICA PRUNUS AVIUM PRUNUS MAHALEB PRUNUS EMLA COLT PRUNUS BESSEYI PRUNUS PERSICA 'LOVELL' OH X F 87/97/333/513 PYRUS CALLERYANA PYRUS COMMUNIS PYRUS USSURIENSIS PRUNUS CERASIFERA PRUNUS MARIANA PRUNUS MYROBALAN PROVENCE QUINCE LIKE OUR ROOTSTOCK, our service will grow on you. ALL FRUIT TREE ROOTSTOCK IS OREGON CERTIFIED VIRUS FREE. c a n b y, o r e g o n See our newly updated website, with all of our offerings & availabilities at ww w.w i lla metten u rseries. co m Crops are In – Inventory is Changing Rapidly – See our Website for Updates 5 0 3 - 2 6 3 - 6 4 0 5 To l l F r e e 1 - 8 0 0 - 8 5 2 - 2 0 1 8 30 April 15, 2013 GOOD FRUIT GROWER by Melissa Hansen s growers put barn owls and other raptors to work in their orchards and vineyards for rodent control, care must be taken to ensure that any rodenticides used do not poison the very raptors being encouraged to hunt and roost. Since installing barn owl and kestrel nesting boxes and raptor perches in his orchard, Mike Omeg, cherry grower from The Dalles, Oregon, has greatly reduced his rodent control costs. And while he believes he'll soon see a day when his raptor populations provide complete control, until then, he must continue to supplement their patrol with other means, using rodenticides in bait stations and in burrows. A barn owl nesting box at Omeg Orchards. Careful selection and use can help growers minimize Notice the metal underneath the box that's the rodenticide risk to the raptor allies. used to prevent raccoons from climbing the Raptor risk from rodenticides is a subject Omeg has pole to reach the next. studied closely, reviewing pages of toxicity data of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He's also conducted because of its rapid breakdown in the bodies of the anihis own trials with rodenticides and raptor habitat in mals that ingested it. However, experimental oral expoorchards that Omeg farms with his father. sures to animals poisoned by zinc phosphide have led to He shared his learning during a raptor workshop he some secondary poisonings in both cats and dogs." helped organize last fall as part of a three-year grant he Rozol is a multiple-feed anticoagulant, received from Utah State University's requiring multiple feedings to ingest Western Sustainable Agriculture Research enough poison to kill. Its paraffin-coated and Education and the U.S. Department pellets make the product useful if ground of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conserconditions are moist or wet. Zinc phosvation Service. The grant provided funds phide pellets react with moisture, which to install nesting boxes and perches in his limits their outdoor use if weather is rainy. orchards and to study his efforts to Omeg believes that Rozol can be safely increase raptor rodent control in the used by orchardists. orchards. He cited a New York study that analyzed "I believe you can use rodenticides the blood levels of raptors found dead. Of safely around raptors," Omeg said during 78 red-tailed hawks analyzed, more than the workshop that was co-sponsored by 50 percent had anticoagulants in their the Wasco County Conservation District. —Mike Omeg blood. More than 80 percent of the 53 "But I want to make sure that growers great horned owls analyzed had anticoagulant don't poison the very barn owls and hawks they are rodenticides in their blood. encouraging to come to their place. " Based on EPA risk data that combine weighted priMinimizing risks mary and secondary risks to birds and mammals for With rodenticides, secondary poisoning (consuming a chlorophacinone, diaphacinone, and zinc phosphide, on poisoned rodent) is the concern to raptors. If you're trying a scale of one to ten, Rozol (chlorophacinone) would be to encourage raptors, then you want to choose one that's considered the safest because it had the lowest risk index relatively safe, if possible, he said. (1.95). Diaphacinone (Ramik Brown) was indexed at 3.01, Two types of rodenticides are commonly used in and zinc phosphide had the highest index of the three orchards—anticoagulants and nonanticoagulants, like materials at 4.63. The EPA index was cited by Liphatech in zinc phosphide/phosphine materials. Anticoagulant Rozol promotional material. materials labeled for orchard use include several Rozol In the EPA study, Potential Risks of Nine Rodenticides to products (chlorophacinone), manufactured by Liphatech, Birds and Nontarget Mammals, a Comparative Approach, and Ramik Brown (diphacinone). Ramik is manufactured published in 2004, the agency stated, "The available labby HACCO. oratory studies indicate that major differences occur Zinc phosphide/phosphine products react with gasamong the rodenticides in their secondary hazard to tric acids to create phosphine gas inside the stomach, birds, with D-Con (brodifacoum) displaying the greatest which kills the animal. According to the National Pestihazard and Rozol (chlorophacinone) and the cide Information Center's Web site, "Zinc phosphide is nonanticoagulants the least." not expected to pose a secondary poisoning hazard "I believe you can use rodenticides safely around raptors." • www.goodfruit.com Photo by melissa hansen M.7/M.26/M.9 EMLA Not all rodenticides are harmful to raptors.

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