Garlic Sprayed with Pesticides

Azoxystrobin

• California's commercial garlic growers applied 11,962 pounds of the fungicide azoxystrobin in 2009, making it their most used chemical on garlic that year. The fungicide combats rust disease in garlic and other Allium species. Rust can quickly wipe out a crop, devastating plants and profitability, as it did in California in 1998. Since then, azoxystrobin has been applied as a preventative, hence its significantly larger usage than the other three pesticides.

Pendimethalin

• Dodder, a parasitic weed that grows in California's garlic-growing regions, is so virulent that the University of California's Integrated Pest Management Program recommends leaving fields fallow where it is consistently discovered. Pendimethalin is the only herbicide known to kill dodder. Consequently, California farmers spread 7,669 pounds of pendimethalin in 2009 to treat the destructive weed before planting their garlic crop.

Oxyfluorfen

• Growers apply oxyfluorfen, a broad-spectrum weedkiller, only after garlic stalks grow taller than 12 inches, otherwise it may kill the garlic plants. The long-lasting herbicide repels weeds for two months after its initial application. It is so effective that it is used widely across California's many agricultural commodities as well as non-planted areas. California garlic growers sprayed 4,550 pounds of oxyfluorfen in 2009.

Glyphosate

• Glyphosate applied on garlic crops in the form of an isopropylamine salt was the fourth most used pesticide by California farmers on garlic crops in 2009. Glyphosate in the form of a potassium salt also was used but in much smaller quantities. A non-selective, post-emergence herbicide, glyphosate kills every plant it contacts. Therefore, it is applied to help clear a garlic field of weeds after garlic plants are full grown and their stalks are drying in the field. In 2009, California garlic farmers applied 4,001 pounds of the isopropylamine salt form of glyphosate.