Farmers, technical advisors, agronomists, and pest control professionals favor chlorpyrifos products because they are effective, relatively inexpensive, and have a broad spectrum of activity against many insect pests when compared to alternative products. Additionally, chlorpyrifos is often a preferred choice in the replacement of highly persistent organochlorine and many highly toxic insecticides, and it is, for many crops, a well-established tool for practicing integrated pest management.
In fact, growers use chlorpyrifos insecticide to defend more than 50 different crops — virtually every crop presently under cultivation globally — against damage caused by insect pests. The table below names a few of these crops, along with the insect pests that commonly infest them.
| Crop | Target Pests |
|---|---|
| Alfalfa | Alfalfa weevil, leafhoppers, aphids and Lepidoptera pests. |
| Citrus | Scale, mealybug, citrus rust mite, Lepidoptera pests, fire ants |
| Corn | Corn rootworm, cutworm, wireworm, white grub, European cornborer |
| Cotton | Pink bollworm, beet armyworm, cotton aphid, plant bugs |
| Cruciferous/Cole Vegetables
(broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, rutabaga, turnips, etc.)
|
Root maggots, cabbage maggot, turnip maggot, root aphid |
| Onions | Root maggots, cabbage maggot, turnip maggot, root aphid |
| Peanuts | Cutworms, lesser cornstalk borer, southern corn rootworms, wireworms, white mold |
| Pome/Stone fruits | San Jose scale, peach twig borer, rosy apple aphid, Pandemis leafrollers, oblique-banded leafrollers, climbing cutworms, peach tree borer, lesser peach tree borer, American plum borer, codling moth, apple maggot, aphids |
| Sorghum | Aphids, sorghum midge, chinch bugs, lesser cornstalk borer, corn earworm, sorghum webworm, fall armyworm, corn rootworm, cutworms, fire ants |
| Soybeans | Spider mites, soybean aphids |
| Sugarbeets | Sugarbeet root maggot, cutworms, armyworms, grasshoppers, aphids |
| Sweet Potatoes | Wireworms, southern corn rootworm, flea beetles |
| Tobacco | Cutworms, wireworm, flea beetles, mole crickets, root maggots |
| Tree nuts
(Almonds, Pecans, Walnuts, etc.)
|
San Jose scale, peach twig borer, navel orange worm, pecan nut casebearer, codling moth, walnut husk fly |
| Wheat | Aphids, orange blossom wheat midge, grasshoppers, brown wheat mite, cutworms |
Grower Testimonials
Chlorpyrifos protects many of the crops you serve at your table, use for clothing, and use to feed your livestock and pets. For some insect infestations, there is no other product that works as effectively.
But you don’t have to take our word for it. In late 2007, in response to a petition from opposition groups, the EPA opened a comment period, allowing the public to voice their opinions about chlorpyrifos. The following excerpts come from that comment period. We’ll let the growers and insect experts speak for themselves.1
Alfalfa
“Alfalfa is not a high insecticide-use crop, but that could change dramatically without chlorpyrifos and cause adjacent crops to also require more pesticide applications… Alfalfa fields are managed as IPM [Integrated Pest Management] tools because they host extremely high numbers of beneficial insects that migrate to adjacent crops… [C]hlorpyrifos has a moderate effect on beneficial insects. It is well documented that pyrethroids, the chemical class used most often as a substitute, is much more disruptive to beneficial insects. Therefore banning chlorpyrifos would harm IPM programs and increase the need for insecticide use. Additionally, banning the chemical would greatly increase the potential for insect resistance due to the small number of alternative chemicals registered for alfalfa.” – California Alfalfa and Forage Association.
Broccoli
“Maine is currently the third-largest broccoli producing state in the nation, behind California and Arizona. I anticipate our production to continue to increase at its current pace, about ten- to 15-percent per year, as transportation costs continue to encourage broccoli users to source their needs on a regional basis. The portion of the delivered cost charged to transportation is less out of Maine than the West for a majority of east coast customers. Maine’s cool, wet spring is conducive to the propagation of the cabbage root maggot. The continued use of this material [i.e., chlorpyrifos] would allow us to competitively produce these types of vegetables in Maine closer to eastern markets, pass on transportation savings to consumers, and as a direct result reduce the amount of diesel fuel burned and the pollution and greenhouse gases discharged into the environment.” – Emerald Valley Ranches, LLC.
Cotton
“Chlorpyrifos in cotton is used primarily against cotton aphids, and particularly late-season infestations. These infestations are potentially very damaging in terms of sticky cotton. Chlorpyrifos is a highly effective chemical and one we can ill afford to lose.” – California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association.
Field crops
“The directors of the Maine Vegetable and Small Fruit Growers Association support the continued use of the active ingredient chlorpyrifos for agricultural production. In Maine, the principle agricultural uses of chlorpyrifos are in field corn, sweet corn, broccoli, cabbage and other cole crops, and strawberries. For broccoli and other cole crops, it is the only active ingredient available that effectively controls…root maggot. For our other crops, this is an important active ingredient to maintain in order to be able to provide a rotation to effectively manage insect resistance development.” – Maine Vegetable and Small Fruit Growers Association.
Grapes
“Chlorpyrifos is needed for control of a wide variety of pests. In California there are 17 counties infested with vine mealybug and once established, vine mealybug is difficult to eradicate. Black widow spider has become a serious issue due to quarantine requirements on U.S. table grape exports, and for stone fruit growers there are similar demands for zero tolerance of Oriental fruit moth on exports destined to Mexico. Chlorpyrifos continues to provide a significant benefit in managing these pests.” – California Grape and Tree Fruit League.
Onions
“Chlorpyrifos is a critically important product in the pesticide arsenal available to onion growers. It is…effective in treating against onion maggots, which if left unchecked can literally destroy plant stands to such an extent that crop losses are catastrophic. Please insure the uninterrupted production of onions by retaining this product in the crop protection lineup until new and equally, or even more effective, products are readily and economically available.” – National Onion Association.
Orchards
“Chlorpyrifos is used to control a variety of pests in orchards, including cutworms, leafrollers, grape mealybug, scale insects, true bugs and woolly apple aphid… No alternative material has a sufficiently broad spectrum of activity that provides control of many of the target insects with a single treatment. In many orchards, loss of chlorpyrifos would mean that multiple active ingredients would have to be used to get the same control as with a single application of chlorpyrifos.” – Northwest Horticultural Council.
Peaches
“Peachtree borer has historically been regarded as the southeastern U.S.’s key borer species, as uncontrolled peachtree borer infestations will debilitate and kill trees more rapidly than the lesser peachtree borer. Control of peachtree borer in southeastern peach production has been, and remains, almost entirely dependent on post-harvest application of chlorpyrifos… Pheromone mating disruption, or substitution of either endosulfan or pyrethroids are dramatically inferior to the current use of chlorpyrifos.” – Dan L. Horton, University of Georgia, Entomology.
Pecans
“My major concerns regarding the withdrawal of chlorpyrifos from the management options currently available to pecan growers in Texas are 1) that the risk of resistance to remaining materials will increase; 2) that some producers may adopt materials that are more disruptive of the IPM [Integrated Pest Management] program (i.e., pyrethroids) than those currently being used; and 3) that outbreaks of secondary pests like aphids, mites and leafminers may result and trigger more insecticide use than is currently needed to produce large crops of good quality.” – Texas Entomologist.
Radishes
“Chlorpyrifos is the only labeled insecticide for maggot control in radishes. Without chlorpyrifos, it will be impossible to raise radishes. Buurma Farms Inc. raises approximately 1500 acres of radishes each year. Without a labeled and effective insecticide for cabbage/radish maggot control, we would lose our ability to product our highest volume crop. If anything, we would like to see the label of chlorpyrifos expanded to include green onions.” – Ohio Grower.
Soybeans
“Chlorpyrifos is an extremely important insecticide for soybean production in Minnesota, as well as most of the upper Midwest. Chlorpyrifos effectively controls two very significant pests in soybean production — spidermites and soybean aphids. Infestations of spidermites can be sporadic [and when they] do occur, yield reductions of greater than 50 percent can result. Based on University of Minnesota research, chlorpyrifos is the product of choice for controlling spidermites in soybeans… Chlorpyrifos is one of only two types of products that have proven to provide effective control of soybean aphids. The other products are synthetic pyrethroids… and their use has sometimes resulted in the need to make supplemental applications of chlorpyrifos to control spidermites.” – Minnesota Soybean Growers Association.
Sugarbeets
“Chlorpyrifos is an important tool in pest management for sugarbeet production in [Southern Idaho]. It provides a much-needed change in chemical formulation to help prevent sugarbeet root maggot resistance… It helps ensure that good quality products are produced to meet market demands and consumer preference. When used properly, chlorpyrifos only improves the quality that we work so hard to provide.” – Southern Idaho Grower.
1Submissions to the EPA docket are public information and have been posted by the Agency at www.regulations.gov, docket number EPA-HQ-OPP-2007-1005.
* Dow AgroSciences has not independently verified the assertions made in the comments or the identities of the individuals or organizations purporting to have submitted the comments.
* Dow AgroSciences has not independently verified the assertions made in the comments or the identities of the individuals or organizations purporting to have submitted the comments.
