This fruit is a polished beauty in the grocery store, but it takes a lot of bug spray, fungicide and horticultural petroleum oil to keep apples so pretty and shiny. Apples are attractive to many kinds of moth larvae, aphids, leafhoppers, mites and various other critters, and are often sprayed five to 10 times during the growth cycle. Some apple varieties are also susceptible to apple scab disease, which leaves brown patches on the skin, and many other fungal diseases. As a result, more than 40 pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are approved for use on apples.
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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.
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