Kitchen Garden Forum

I seem to recall someone saying that our friends in Brussels are withdrawing the above, if true, do we know when ?

Dear Shallot Man, i haven't heard anything yet, but there seems to be plenty of people still selling it at the moment.

I'm sure I read somewhere that it is being withdrawn after this year. Not sure where I read it though. The old memory's not what it was Better stock up this year just in case.

Cheers, PJ

I tried to stock up and ordered a number of bottles from Kay's. I've just had an e-mail from them and they don't sell it anymore.
Regards, Gerry.

Bought some today and the Gooseberry Sawfly larvae are suffering as a result!

Derris liquid & possibly dust are being withdrawn from sale later this year I think the report was in GYO mag

Withdrawn because (as i understand it) the cost of legal compliance is high for a low value product.
Yes, it was in the magazine.

I went off to search the magazine site (as opposed to the forum) and failled to find a search function.

background reading 1 http://www.rhs.org.uk/Learning/Publications/pubs/garden0503/pesticides.htm

Hi Stephen,
You are perfectly correct in what you are saying and it is because it is simply too expensive to comply with the law which is even stricter in UK than the rest of Europe.
Paraquat went the same way as it was shoved aside by Roundup and sales would not have been worth the money needed to comply. The organic faction put it about that through their lobbying Paraquat was banned but in truth it was never banned simply the licence was not renewed by the manufacturers.
It is still available in many parts of the world.
JB.

Hi Guys

Check out your April issue, page 7 and also my Ed's intro in the same issue - it tells you all about this. Saw it in Grow Your Own indeed!

I've been a user of Derris on an occaisional basis as it's the only thing I've found which got rid of greenfly infestations I get from time to time in my conservatory (esp. on my pepper plants).

I had to give them a spray this morning and noticed there were a lot more warnings on the bottle than in previous ones I'd bought. A quick Google brought up a lot of answers. For those of you who use Derris or are frustrated at "Brussels" for imposing these restrictions, you may be interested in the following links. Be aware, some of these are quite lengthy documents:
1 - A short summary about Derris from Wikipedia
2 - A longish article that explains the actual research that led to the ban - see Neurotoxicity
3 - A fairly balanced article, giving pro's & cons


In summary, the most recent trigger seems to have been some research that formed a connection between Derris and Parkinsons Disease. I'm pretty absent minded already so this wasn't pleasant reading. However if you read carefully, you'll see this was arrived at by injecting derris directly into the veins of laboratory rats for some time. Whether this is a valid test for the effect Derris might have on people (used in normal gardening situations) is hard to say.

Finally for those of you who still have some supplies, it's worth noting that the dust is more likely to find its way into you (via inhalation) than the liquid. I tried the dust a few years ago and didn't find it very easy to use without generating clouds of dust (kuch of whih didn't seem to stick to the plants being treated). I just use the liquid now.

I'd also add that I tried one of the "biological controls" this spring. This was a predator insect whose grubs eat aphids. It worked pretty well, but cost around £10.....