Pesticides also in organic gardens

Numerous spray poisons are transported over longer distances by the wind. They pollute wild herbs as well as domestic gardens. A monitoring program by the German tea and herb specialist Heuschrecke shows how dangerous this drift is.

Heuschrecke provides evidence of glyphosate contamination

Heuschrecke has long collaborated with the Croatian wild collection project Terra Magnifica. In the collected wild herbs, such as lime blossoms, glyphosate pollution repeatedly appeared. A clear proof that this spray poison (as well as others) is transported over long distances and pollutes the environment. Heinz-Dieter Gasper and Ursula Stübner from Heuschrecke drew attention to this threat to wild collections with their lime blossom campaign last year.

At the same time they decided, together with Terra Magnifica and the Croatian laboratory Quanta, to collect evidence of this environmental poisoning by drift. Test site was the garden of Terra Magnifica-boss Sanja, a green oasis, but with conventional vineyards on neighboring slopes. The measurement data collected in June 2018 impressively show how the pesticides from the vineyards can also be found in the organic garden shortly after application, even though it is completely surrounded by three to ten metre high trees and bushes.

Pesticide residues make organic farming more difficult

"This new series of tests provides confirmatory (and still shocking) results. Pesticides are distributed consistently over distances of up to 70m and the residues found exceed the usual organic-orientation value (0.01 mg/kg) by a factor of 20 - 100", says the blog entry by Heuschrecke. Even rain had only partially washed off the residues. "Only after three to six weeks it could be determined that the residues decreased by natural degradation.

The conclusion of Heuschrecke: "So far, it has become clear that the cultivation of 'organic products' is incredibly difficult if not impossible as soon as intensive conventional cultivation is carried out in the environment. "