December Podcasts: Navigating Pesticide Choices

Authors: Annie Klodd and Natalie Hoidal. "What's Killing My Kale?" is the UMN Extension podcast on fruit and vegetable pest management. Each episode, we interview a farmer, researcher, or Extension Educator about hot topics and innovative methods for managing pests. The December episodes of the podcast center around understanding the complex topic of pesticide use and safety on fruit and vegetable farms, including organic and natural pest management products.

Episode 17: Glyphosate and Cancer with Kaci Buhl. Kaci is the statewide director of Pesticide Safety Education at Oregon State University, and the deputy director of the Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative (PERC). In this episode, Kaci talks about how people approach risk around herbicides, and dissects the complexity of current research on glyphosate and cancer.

Episode 18: What Does Pesticide Safety Mean for Organic Farms? with Natalie Hoidal. In this episode, Natalie discusses the importance of thinking about pesticide safety on all fruit and vegetable farms, including organic farms with organic pesticide products. She also lays out the results of the fruit and vegetable pesticide use survey that was distributed by UMN Extension to fruit and vegetable growers throughout 2018.

Episode 19: Navigating Natural Remedies: What Works and Why? with Linda Chalker-Scott. The internet lays many claims about the benefits of numerous "alternative" or "natural" remedies for pest management and plant health. How do we know which methods are backed up by science, and which are not? In this episode, Linda lays out ways growers can determine if claims about natural products are accurate and effective. We use epsom salts and compost tea as two examples.

Linda is an Extension Educator at Washington State University and manages the Horticultural Myths blog and The Informed Gardener podcast.