Request exemption
Safe or not, to be allowed to use the plea, the Commission must first investigate for the admission of crop protection products and biocides (CTGB). A producer must apply for that himself. And that has not happened for cherry cultivation in all those years. And so an exemption must be requested every year.
Very annoying, says the fruit grower. Moreover, the drug is used abroad, and with vegetable and fruit growing. “There is an image that we are busy with poison, but it is a biological pesticide that is also used for strawberries, cucumbers, onions and tomatoes. It is completely safe.”
“The manufacturer finds our sector so small, it goes for the little bit of cherries that we grow in the Netherlands do not let an expensive research. He cannot earn back his money,” says Appelman.
Asian parasitic
“It cannot be controlled without pesticides,” acknowledges Herman Helsen from Wageningen University & Research. He has been researching a natural enemy for the fruit fly for years. The insect nets that growers now work with are often not enough to keep the flies outside the trees.
Work is being done on the introduction of the Asian parasitic wasp, as the natural enemy of the flies: “That will make a contribution, but it is not a total solution.”
Text continues under the photo.