Customer Conscious Biorational Spray Program

One of the hottest trends in food lately is “buy local, buy fresh.” The U-Pick fields of D&D Farms are as local and fresh as it comes. Located in Palm City, FL, the farm’s fields are filled with people on most days looking to pick the perfect pepper or favorite squash.

Dean Bruschi, owner of D&D Farms, says the roughly 50 varieties of fresh produce he plants keeps customers coming back for more. In addition to U-Pick, the farm recently established a community supported agriculture (CSA) program.

“These days, people want to know their farmer and where their food comes from,” says Bruschi. “That is why we do the U-Pick and CSA. We also are providing field trips for schools, kind of moving toward an agritainment approach.”

Customer Conscious

With people in his fields every day, Bruschi is especially conscious of his spray program. Restricted entry interval (REI) and pre-harvest interval (PHI) are particularly important in his product selection.

“A biorational spray program is a great approach for us, because we do have people in the fields just about every day,” he says. “I can tell my workers to stay out of a field and they will listen, but sometimes our customers might have a mind of their own and go into fields whether warning signs are posted or not.”

Bt products have short REIs taking away the worry over “wandering” U-Pick customers in the fields. Bruschi rotates DiPel, XenTari, and spinosad on a weekly schedule for his worm control program. All three products have REIs of only four hours. DiPel and Xentari have zero days PHI, while spinosad has a one day PHI. (Some states carry varying PHI requirements. Consult your state’s requirements in the label.)

Bruschi prefers making pest control sprays at dusk after his employees and customers have left the fields. And he says, “the sprays seem to lay down better late in the afternoon, so we get better coverage and control.”

By the time customers and employees return in the morning, the REI has long expired for the biorational products. As for results, Bruschi says the Bts work great for controlling worms. His most troublesome pest is the diamondback moth, particularly for the fall planting.

“I’ve always preached that we be as effective as we can be with our pest control program, while watching out for what we spray with,” he says. “I bring produce home from our fields every night, so safety is very important to me, just as it is for my customers.”