'It worked really well': Kerikeri orchard trials alternatives to Hi Cane
'It worked really well': Kerikeri orchard trials alternatives to Hi Cane
A Kerikeri orchard is having success using alternatives to controversial chemical spray.
We live next to two kiwi fruit orchards, and have just had messages saying they’ll be spraying Hi Cane soon. They do give us at least 24hr advanced notice. It’s potentially dangerous stuff, we will not go out of the house during any spray time.
I worked in the kiwifruit industry for a while, this is great news as it was considered very likely Hi-Cane (hydrogen cyanamide) would be banned both in NZ and by importing nations.
What do we know about the health effects of the new product?
That’s a good question. The health effects of the previous product have caused serious questions for a long while, so one might guess the new product has been developed to cause far less issues in side effects, yet still be effective in its action.
Yes, it sounds like it's not as bad as Hi Cane but might just be a less bad option rather than being 100% OK.
looks like Synchron is mostly amino acids and Siberio is decanol alkoxylate at least that is what they release publicly. alcohol alkoxylates are not too great for frogs: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11504342/
Ah, so it's a less bad but not perfect option. I wondered.