What's in your corn??? hexythiazox???

read on, and then enjoy your own fresh corn...

http://www.agr.state.tx.us/media/press_releases/0604/com_062904.htm

Media/Press
For Immediate Release: June 29, 2004
Contact: Allen Spelce or Beverly Boyd
(512) 463-7664

TDA Secures Crisis Exemption To Use Onager Miticide On Corn To Control Mites

AUSTIN - Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs announced today that the Texas Department of Agriculture has been granted approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue a Section 18 crisis exemption allowing the use of hexythiazox (Onager Miticide) on corn in Texas as a resistant management tool to control the Banks grass mite (Oligonychus pratensis) and the two-spotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae Koch).

Onager Miticide, manufactured by the Gowan Company, may be applied following all directions, restrictions and precautions on the EPA registered product label, as well as restrictions within the exemption notice. The crisis exemption went into effect June 25, 2004, and will remain in effect until EPA makes a decision on the FIFRA Section 18 Emergency Specific Exemption that TDA submitted June 2.

Applications will be made only by certified applicators, by licensed applicators or by persons under the direct supervision of licensed applicators.

Onager Miticide may be applied in the following Texas counties: Bailey, Borden, Carson, Castro, Cochran, Crosby, Dallam, Dawson, Deaf Smith, Floyd, Gaines, Gray, Hale, Hansford, Hartley, Hockley, Hemphill, Hutchinson, Lamb, Lipscomb, Lubbock, Lynn, Mitchell, Moore, Oldham, Ochiltree, Parmer, Potter, Randall, Roberts, Scurry, Sherman, Swisher, Terry, Wheeler and Yoakum.

For more information, contact your county Texas Cooperative Extension office or TDA at (512) 463-7544. A copy of the approval notice is located on the TDA Web site at www.agr.state.tx.us/pesticide/exemptions/pes_corn.htm.

ON WITH HOME VEGETABLE GARDENS!!!

"Applications will be made only by certified applicators, by licensed applicators or by persons under the direct supervision of licensed applicators."

I wouldn't get too excited about that...any poison that can only legally be applied by licensed sprayers is usually not something a home gardener would want to use (hopefully, anyway).

In a home garden there are other ways to get rid of mites, if indeed they exist there.

I imagine the above was put into effect for commercial mono-crop growers of corn that are being affected by an onslaught of mites and need to pull out the bazookas.

Shoe~
Oh, definitely, it is for the big growers. I am not concerned about the mites, just so grateful that I am not going to be eating their corn this year. After all, if it is the "big guns", it has probably previously been restricted for some reason, and I probably don't want to know why...
BTW, I planted two more corn crops today, can't wait, mmm, mmm, GOOD.
~Corny

PS, why don't you give us some home remedies for the mites, and maybe a picture of what a mite looks like? And what preys on mites, and what sort of damage do they do, at what stage of the corn do they show up.
I would look it up, but I just seem to get more info getting it here at DG...

I've never sprayed corn for mites. The only time I've gone for bugs in the corn patch was for worms and I just used mineral oil for that.

Actually if you use any prepared or restaurant foods that contain corn products and just about all of them do. You can't avoid the use of commercial field corn.