12 foods to eat only if they're organic

4. Cherries
Cherries, like most stone fruits, are attractive to many insect pests. Aphids, eriophyid mites, tent caterpillars, webworms and western cherry fruit flies are the major invaders that cherry producers try to fend off with pesticides. Cherries are also susceptible to many viruses and fungal diseases. In order to bring bug- and disease-free cherries to market, many cherry growers spray orchards with a series of pesticides and horticultural oils beginning in the dormant stage in early March and continuing until harvest in June or July. As a result, tests of domestic cherries show the presence of more than 20 different pesticide residues.

Organic growers are prohibited from spraying trees with any petroleum- or synthetic-based pesticide, so they have to make a truce with the wild birds that eat insects that plague cherry trees but often consume the cherries, too. Organic cherry orchardist Lise Rousseau of Bigfork, Montana, says, "It's not impossible to grow an organic cherry, but it does take a little more effort." Rousseau believes that maintaining a healthy tree that can fight off viruses and pests is the best way to grow organic cherries.

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Excerpted from To Buy or Not To Buy Organic, copyright 2007 by Cindy Burke. Used by permission of Avalon Publishing Group.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.