Welcome and thank you for joining today's webinar 
from the National Pesticide Information Center.
My name is Amy Holman, and I'm 
the project coordinator here at NPIC.
Before we get started today I'd like 
to cover a couple of quick logistics.
I'd like to invite you to please use 
the Q&A box to ask any questions
during the webinar, and we
understand that today's webinar is
heavily attended so while we'll try to
answer as many questions as we can,
for any questions that aren't 
answered during the webinar
please feel free to call our hotline 
to talk with one of our pesticide specialists.
A recorded version of today's 
webinar will be available soon
on the NPIC website and 
on our YouTube channel.
For our presentation today, 
I'd like to introduce our speakers
beginning with Alicia Leytem. Alicia is a
senior pesticide specialist here at NPIC.
She has a master's in soil science,
and a bachelors in botany, both from here at OSU.
Some of her past experience 
includes working for an organic farm,
and outdoor science education for kids. 
She is also an avid gardener, mushroom hunter,
and food preserver in her spare time. 
Our first speaker is April Strid.
A native Oregonian, April has a 
background in geology, and soil science,
and has been a pesticide 
specialist for just over a year at NPIC.
Before working with NPIC, she spent 
her time studying Oregon forest soils,
and organizing research projects about 
soil nutrition and carbon cycling. Welcome, April.
Thank you very much Amy, 
I appreciate the introduction.
Now, let's go ahead and get started today. 
Good morning, and good afternoon
for those of you on a 
different part of the country.
So I'm going to get started by
talking about some of NPIC's services,
what we do here at the National
Pesticide Information Center,
and how that relates to the some of 
the questions that you might receive
as a master gardener. A lot of the 
questions that we receive
overlap with the types of questions 
that you might encounter as well.
Things like what happens if weed killer is in my 
grass clippings, can I use that in my compost pile?
Or, can I use a pesticide in 
the yard to control ticks?
Is that going to affect my garden? 
Could slug bait hurt my dog?
These are the types of 
questions that we receive,
but we also are hoping to talk about the 
tools today that we might be able to give you
so that you are better prepared to 
answer some of these questions as well.
So while we're not going to be talking 
about those specific answers
to those questions, we're talking 
about some of those tools we use.
And so one of those things is 
risk, risk communications
so we will be talking about risk
communication after NPIC services.
We'll talk about organic 
pesticides and what that means,
and Alicia will take over to discuss 
pollinators and pollinators and pesticides,
and we'll finish up with some safe use practices, 
and then we'll have some time for questions.
So let's go ahead and get started.
At the National Pesticide Information Center,
we are first and foremost and
information library for pesticides.
Our goal is to provide unbiased, science-based information about all things pesticides.
So one of the things that we do 
is we run an information line
from 8 A.M. to noon Pacific Time 
Monday through Friday.
And some of those questions that 
we have are easy to answer
when we can have a 
conversation about something.
So sometimes that hotline
is a really great resource.
We can also answer 
questions via email,
and we have a lot of content 
on our website as well.
There's hundreds of informational pages, 
there's also some information available in Spanish,
and those informational 
pages are written in a way
that they're based on the
questions that we receive.
So hopefully a lot of that information on 
the website can be helpful to you as well.
We are at Oregon State University in Oregon.
We're grant funded through the EPA,
but we're not a regulatory body,
we're not the same as the EPA.
Now our team is made up of trained specialists, 
myself and Alicia are both trained specialists
we have a large range of backgrounds. 
We both have backgrounds in soil science,
We have people here with backgrounds 
in toxicology, microbiology,
journalism, chemistry, we come 
from a large range of expertise.
So we're here to translate science into 
information that people can understand.
We talk to all sorts of people, generally the 
audiences are members of the general public.
I've spoken to veterinarians, 
doctors, homeowners,
I've even spoken to somebody 
who was running for office before.
So to finish this up we provide 
unbiased science-based information
so that we can help people 
to make informed decisions.
A lot of what we cover are questions 
relating to health and safety concerns
relating to pesticides. We cover topics related to pregnancy, animals, environment, soil, water, air.
One of the other interesting things that we 
do is we collect incident information when
someone reports that they have had 
some type of exposure to a pesticide.
So say for example someone calls in and 
they're telling me that they spilled a pesticide
on their arm and they have some type of
rash. What I'm going to do, is I'm going
to collect some information about how that 
occurred, what pesticide was was involved,
and all of this type of information 
is anonymous it's not attached
to that particular person, but that general 
body of data can be submitted and given
to the EPA, and it can help inform regulatory 
decisions about certain pesticides.
We also have a lot of 
information about pest control.
If there's a particular pest you're
wondering about ants, carpenter ants,
termites, all types of pests you might
have either indoor or outdoor, we discuss
integrated pest management methods as
well. We discuss regulations, and we also
have a lot of information on both 
indoor and outdoor pesticide use.
So while we probably will focus on 
more examples of outdoor because
we're discussing topics that are more 
related to Master Gardeners today,
we also have a lot of information 
about indoor pesticide use.
A couple of things we don't do, we 
don't make pesticide recommendations,
and we also do not have medical training 
and so we are not providing medical advice,
we're not providing medical treatment advice 
just because we aren't medically trained.
Now for some of our most popular web pages 
are our active ingredients fact sheets.
For questions that are about a certain active
ingredient, consider going online and
looking for these general fact sheets 
that can be found on our website.
These are peer-reviewed documents, and we
aim for them to be easy to understand with easily
digestible information, and they're broken into a question-and-answer format with questions like
how does this pesticide work? Or, are there
links to cancer? What are the symptoms
that could come up if I were to be
exposed? Or my pets would be to be
exposed to something like this?
So these active ingredient fact sheets
could be really helpful for a lot of
questions that do come up.
While we don't have pesticide fact sheets
about every pesticide that's out there,
we have written fact sheets about ingredients
that we get the most questions about.
All right, another resource 
that we have are videos.
We have a few minute videos 
about frequently asked questions,
a few also about specific active 
ingredients. These videos are available
on our website also available on YouTube. 
I encourage you to check those out.
Now there are also some questions 
we sometimes get that were not
the correct resource to address those
too. So we keep a list of local resources
that are easily found using a map like 
this. So if you come across this map
on our website this is where you might find 
contact information for master gardeners.
You also might find contact 
information for the Extension Service,
state and federal agencies such 
as the Department of Agriculture,
health department's, and 
also divisions within the EPA.
Now with that, I'd like to transition 
away from our services at the
National Pesticide Information Center, 
into talking a little more about risk
and the factors that we can discuss that
help people understand pesticide risk.
So some of those questions I
mentioned earlier like are grass
clippings with a weed killer okay to use
in my compost pile? Or can I use treated
wood in my garden bed? Or something like can 
I plant vegetables after using an herbicide.
These are questions that can be simplified
down into this simple question of
is it safe. There's usually not just 
a yes or no answer to that question
is it safe. Instead there's a lot of 
different factors that might play a role.
So if someone calls in and asked 
me some of these questions,
I don't want to say yes it's safe, 
or no it's not safe,
because this binary thinking 
doesn't provide  the full picture.
If the answer to the question 
is it safe, yes, if the answer is just yes,
that can imply that there are no 
precautions necessary.
On the other hand, if the 
answer is no, it's not safe,
then we can create needless anxiety, 
some type of alarm, or unease.
And no pesticide is 
completely 100% safe,
because pesticides are intended 
to kill or harm some type of pests
there can be some risk involved and
that's why we frame it using risk.
So to use an example with driving a 
car we can't say that driving a car
is 100 percent safe, and that's because 
there may be some unknowns involved.
We don't want to say that no 
precautions are necessary, it's better to
understand the fuller picture, understand 
the risks involved, and understand what
can be done in a single situation so that we're empowered to figure out what we can do,
what we are in control of 
to reduce the risk.
So at NPIC, when I get a call
and someone is asking
can I use treated wood in my garden 
bed? What I'm thinking in my head is,
this person is curious about what the risks 
might be of using treated wood in the garden bed.
So we can have a conversation
about that, and discuss
where their concerns lie and we can talk
where the risk comes from in their situation.
Now there's sort of a 
simple formula for
understanding where the risk comes
from in any particular situation.
With pesticides we want to talk about 
both the toxicity of that pesticide,
and the potential for exposure.
So this means how much you might be
exposed to it, where you might be 
exposed to it, and getting something
in your eye might be really different
than getting it on your skin.
So to demonstrate this I want
to use a couple really simple
examples to show how toxicity and 
exposure are really the keys here.
So think about drinking water
on the right is a bar showing the
level of toxicity of these items, 
and on the left is the level of exposure.
So drinking water of course 
is very low in toxicity.
With enough exposure to even something 
like drinking water, it's very low in toxicity,
if someone were to drink water
continually, keep drinking,
with enough exposure you
can get very sick it can be fatal.
So even with something that's low in
toxicity, it's important to understand
that that exposure is
an important factor.
In a slightly different example, 
with radioactive waste of course it's
higher in toxicity, and so with that
high level of toxicity, a small exposure
might result in a 
really high level of risk.
So with any situation, of course 
it's more complicated than
drinking water or radioactive waste. 
So there's a lot of factors to think about.
Again to think about the driving example. 
Factors like the type of car you have,
the safety features in that car, the frequency 
of your driving, and the road conditions.
The precautionary measures that you 
might be taking, how distracted you may be,
whether you're wearing seat belts
or have the appropriate car seats.
These are all factors that can
affect the risks with driving.
And again there's some unknowns 
here, so we can't predict what the person
across the road from us is going to do. 
There might be some unknowns
in the particular road conditions.
So the unknowns are also an
important thing to recognize 
when we're discussing risk.
With pesticides, some of these
similar factors will play in.
So the type of pesticide is important. 
That toxicity factor will come up
in the type of pesticide when 
you start looking into that.
The frequency of pesticide use is something 
used more often. That risk can change.
The conditions that you're doing an 
application, that these can also affect
the potential for drift, and exposure to 
off-site places, or off target organisms.
And precautionary measures, wearing the 
appropriate clothing can reduce risk as well.
So when it comes to 
a question like this,
there's again these two factors we want 
to focus on, toxicity and exposure.
If you're coming across 
questions about pesticides,
try and frame them with these two
things the toxicity and the exposure.
See if bringing these 
into the conversation can
help us understand 
where that risk really lies.
So with fish we could assess
whether something is toxic to fish,
and then we can assess where those fish 
in relation to where this is being applied.
Can that pesticide move through soil? 
Is that pesticide soluble in water?
Now keeping that in mind, there's
also factors in our perception
that can change 
how risk is perceived.
So not understanding 
how our brain might
miss perceive something, 
can skew us in the wrong way.
Sometimes risk is drastically overestimated, 
it can also be underestimated.
To demonstrate this, think about a
time you felt like you were very afraid
of something you shouldn't be.
Maybe it felt really irrational.
Maybe you have been surprised by 
someone who's doing something
that you thought was way 
too risky to even consider.
Sometimes we overreact,
sometimes we underreact.
And this is really fascinating there's lots
of different things we know to be
factors that might affect how we
perceive something that could be risky.
And this doesn't just 
apply to pesticides,
this applies to a lot of things 
that we might encounter.
On the left are factors that can reduce 
how risky we might see something to be,
and on the right are things that might 
make us think something is particularly risky.
So if something voluntary 
or we see it as more beneficial,
that can make 
something seem less risky.
If for example a landlord is 
saying you have to treat your
apartment for cockroaches, 
this might be seen as something that's
imposed upon you, 
and so it's seen as lower risk.
Maybe you don't worry 
about cockroaches,
and so you don't think it's 
beneficial to get rid of them.
Seeing it as not beneficial can also 
make that risk seem a little bit higher,
So keep these types of factors in 
mind when you come across things
that you think may be 
unsafe or too risky.
And these can help 
inform those conversations.
So I wanted to talk about 
risk communication today,
to introduce this idea of not 
just using yes or no answers
for those those questions about safety,
but instead framing them using risk.
You are in situations just like we are,
answering questions from the public,
and it can be helpful to ask 
more questions about that situation.
Help them understand what
they're most concerned about.
And it what's really key is figuring out
what that person is comfortable with.
What level of risk they
are comfortable with,
because for every individual 
that's going to be really different.
Alicia will be talking a 
little bit more later about
what types of things we
can do to minimize risk.
But before Alicia jumps in I'm going 
to talk about organic pesticides.
So we'll transition here into organics, 
when we hear the term organic pesticides,
what you should be thinking are
pesticides that are approved for use
in organic production.
These are still pesticides.
One of the common
misconceptions about organic food
is that it has been grown without 
pesticides, but it's not the case.
Organic foods aren't 
necessarily pesticide free,
but they've been grown and 
produced with pesticides
that have been approved
for use with the EPA,
and then also by the
USDA's Organic Standards.
The ingredients in organic pesticides 
are typically ingredients that are
found in nature, they're non 
man-made or non synthetic materials.
There are exceptions to that rule, 
so things that are found in nature
that can't be used in organic 
production include things like
arsenic or lead salts,
tobacco dust is another example.
Examples of ingredients that can be 
used in organic production include
diatomaceous earth which are ground-up
marine organisms, pepper, soaps,
acetic acid, pyrethrins, neem oil, this is an
image of a neem seed maybe you've come
across some of these just 
in your everyday work as well.
Now if you were to be looking for
a pesticide that could be used for
organic production, this is a 
logo we're really familiar with,
but this is not the logo that 
would be on an organic input.
Inputs are going to have a different logo.
This is for food, and not for pesticides.
So just like an organic farm 
could be going through
certification to display
that circular logo,
any crop input that's used for organic
production, fertilizers or pesticides,
can go through a certification 
to be used in production.
Now the Organic Materials Review Institute
is one of the main certifying bodies,
it's a non-profit, it's not a 
government organization,
and they keep a list of organic 
products that they certify.
They have about six thousand 
products that are currently registered.
Maybe you've seen this logo
on products that you've used before.
Other products that you might come
across include this logo on the left
from the Washington State 
Department of Agriculture.
You might also come across this 
logo down on the bottom that says
for organic production, or for organic 
gardening. These are from the EPA.
Now the materials used in organic
pesticides are very specific.
There's only certain active ingredients and
inert ingredients that can be used,
and those inputs are also 
produced using certain standards
and they're used in
really specific ways.
So ozone gas for example 
is approved for use,
but it's only used to clean 
irrigation systems.
Boric acid is approved for use but 
only for pest control and structures.
There shouldn't be 
any food contact.
And some uses are really 
specific like ethylene gas
is just for use for 
regulating pineapple flowering.
So are organic pesticides safer? 
This is a question that
maybe you've thought about, 
maybe you've come across before too.
Even though these products 
may have ingredients that are,
maybe these ingredients are found in nature,
they are likely to have some level of toxicity.
And because they have some level of toxicity 
they have some level of risk involved.
All pesticides, organic or not, are 
intended to kill or harm some type of pest.
So the answer to this question
again may come down
to this situation specific risk question 
like was discussed earlier.
So we could talk about the toxicity of
that particular product, and exposure.
So like a 20 percent vinegar solution
for example is a proof for use
in organic production but can 
cause serious eye damage.
In another example, neem oil is
something that's approved for use in
organic production, but one
of the components in neem oil
is azadirachtin and can cause
some stomach and skin irritation.
So it's important to
understand where the risks
might be coming from 
in any particular situation.
Remembering that toxicity and 
exposure are both important factors,
and having those conversations that 
are about risk and asking questions
and understanding where a given 
person's comfortable level of risk may lie.
That's all I've got for you today 
and I'm going to hand it over to
Alisha right now so she can take over
 and continue with the discussion.
Hey guys this is Alicia, 
I'm sorry about all the
technical problems at the
beginning of the webinar,
I'm hoping that things are working 
better for all of you out there now.
So I'm going to transition a 
little bit and start talking about
pollinators of pollinator protection,
ways to think about the
pollinators when you're using 
products in your yard or garden.
Primarily I'm going to be 
addressing yard and garden use,
because we're talking to master gardeners,
but a lot of these tips can also be used
for reducing risks and other situations,
not necessarily for pollinators.
Okay so as master gardeners
you guys are more than trained on,
you know, the benefits of pollinators, 
the importance of pollinators.
Most people think about honey 
bees when they hear pollinators
and pollinators have been in the news
a lot more lately because of you know
colony collapse disorder and other
situations where pollinators are being poisoned
or they're getting diseases or
they're at feeling with varroa mite.
As master gardeners you're aware that 
honey bees are not the only pollinators,
and in fact a lot of the native
pollinators may be at higher risk
because of the fact that they don't
live in separated hives that get
moved around they're living out 
in the environment themselves.
So things like butterflies, monarchs, 
you know, some other pollinators
have specifically been adapting along 
with the plants that they pollinate,
so they're actually more 
effective than honey bees.
Things like bumble bees 
and their buzz pollination.
And then you can also think about you 
know, hummingbirds, hoverflies, beetles,
all of these insects and animals 
are out there helping to pollinate
our plants, increasing our 
seed and vegetable production.
Most gardeners who have now 
become concerned about pollinators,
their first step is to 
develop a pollinator garden.
And I'm sure you guys have seen these, you 
probably have these at your Extension offices.
You know, lots of flowers wide variety 
of flowers, different kinds of flowers,
and then being aware of 
having those flowers flowering
for a longer period of the year
so that there is flower nectar
and pollen out there for 
those early bumblebees,
but then also pollen available later in the 
season when lots of things have died off.
It's also important to consider creating 
habitat for those native pollinators
so having bare dirt or 
open earth areas for the
ground dwelling bees, as well
as leaving some things in place
such as canes from cane berries,
so that the cane boring bees
who use those for their habitat overwintering 
have someplace to stay and settle.
And you know just waiting to
clean up your canes until the spring
can provide much-needed 
habitat out in the environment.
Okay I'll try and be loud it sounds like 
you guys are still having a hard time
hearing us so I'll try and
speak directly into the mic.
Okay so when do pesticides 
and pollinators clash?
So this is a situation when it gets to a 
point within your garden or your yard,
that you're dealing with pests
and you need to take some action.
Obviously trying other methods first 
is ideal, because the less you use,
the less products you use, 
the less risk there's going
to be to pollinators 
and other beneficials.
If you're out you have, you 
know, aphids taking over,
then you go out and use a 
broad-spectrum pesticide.
You need to keep in mind that that is also
going to affect the beneficial insects
that may have shown up to help 
control that problem on their own.
So if you have aphids and ladybug larva 
where they're eating up those aphids,
and you go and spray them, you will 
also be killing off your beneficials.
So you just want to keep that in
mind it's not just about pollinators,
there's also beneficial
insects out there.
So if you're using a product 
you want to make sure you
choose the appropriate
product, read the label,
make sure it's listed for the
site that you want to apply to,
like specifically list the vegetable 
or the plant, or something
more broadly that encompasses
that vegetable or plant,
and then also the pests 
that you are trying to control
because that means the manufacturers 
of the product have done some testing
on that pest and shown that
there is some level of efficacy.
Okay now when you are choosing 
a product, just like April has said,
you want to keep in mind with the 
pollinators, the toxicity and the exposure.
These two components are going
to develop or combine to create
what level of risk the 
pollinators might be at.
So when considering toxicity 
you want to choose products
that are low in
toxicity to pollinators.
So how do you do that, 
you want to check their
active ingredient toxicity 
specifically to pollinators.
Many products may have a pollinator
protection statement on the label,
so you'll want to read and look for that.
Then if it doesn't have that on there
and you want to dig a little 
deeper just to check,
there are a few resources that I use 
frequently on the phone will callers,
that might be useful for you 
and might help you if you have
these sorts of questions coming
to your master gardener line,
or at you know events that
you guys are hosting.
So the first is this publication 
out of OSU Extension
called how to reduce bee 
poisoning from pesticides.
And it's available online, we're 
going to send you these links
in the follow-up email so you 
don't have to write this down.
You can download it as an app for 
your phone or for your tablet it's free,
or you can just pull up the PDF online
or download and print off the PDF.
So this publication is great it has
a large section in the beginning
that talks about lots of different 
tips for ways to reduce risk to bees.
And then also specific 
sections written for beekeepers,
or you know, agricultural producers. 
And it also will list things like,
ways to minimize the risks, the signs 
and symptoms of bee poisoning.
And then there's a large section with 
active ingredients listed out individually,
and it shows the toxicity 
of each of those two bees.
So here's an example, this is 
the very first part of that table
and as you can see, it says at the top,
that this is specific for bees that are
typical in the California, Idaho, 
Oregon and Washington area
because they're on the west coast. So if 
there's any master gardeners out there
familiar with publications like this that are 
specific for other regions in the country,
please email those to us we
would love to know about them
so that we can add them 
to our repertoire as well.
But I think this is still a good 
baseline because a lot of this
research is with the 
domesticated honeybee,
and they're you know the
same across the country.
And they're actually moved
across the country so.
You can see on the left here the 
active ingredients from products,
and in this publication it 
has only insecticides listed.
That's not true, I think they 
also list some fungicides,
but they don't really go 
into herbicides at all.
And then it shows here the
different levels of toxicity so
if something is highly toxic
to bees that means it has an
extended residual toxicity 
identified by the EPA
which means after the product has 
been applied, after eight hours or more,
the residues from that application
are still toxic enough to kill
at least 25% of bees that will 
come visit that site or that plant.
If it has just residual toxicity which 
means it if toxic if the bees come
right after the application, then that's 
also listed it's just in the middle category.
And then if the product has 
no precautionary statements
on the label that is listed, the nice 
thing about this is that you can
also see some additional research 
they've found for other kinds of bees.
So there's leaf cutting bees,
alkali bees listed here,
they talk specifically about bumble 
bees. And so this is just a good
place to go reference those 
different active ingredients.
The other publication I use is out of 
University of California IPM program
and this is the bee 
precaution pesticide ratings.
It's only online I don't think
it's available as an app.
But the nice thing is that they 
do have herbicides listed on this.
And so you pull this website up,
we're also going to send that to you,
and you just you know select your 
herbicide, hit the add to list button.
And then it pops up down
below with the rating, and the
rating comes with specific directions,
so do not apply or allow to drift to plants
that are flowering, except when
the application is made between
sunset and midnight if allowed by
the pesticide label and regulations.
Right because this product
is toxic to honey bee brood,
so you don't want a bee to come 
pick up the active ingredient
and carry it back to their hives
because it may be killing off their brood.
And so you know applying in the
evenings that I have all night to dry
before the morning when
there's bees out foraging again.
Okay so now we've gone
through a couple ways
to look at the toxicity of
those active ingredients,
and now we're going to talk 
about how to reduce the exposure.
And I'm sure that you guys
have a lot of ideas on this too,
these are just a few, this is not a 
comprehensive list but it's a good place to start.
So after you've chosen a product, you 
want to make sure that you follow all the
label directions. You need to apply it 
according to the concentration on the label.
Apply it when it is supposed 
to be applied to the areas
that are meant to be 
applied, and all of that.
You want to make sure that you're 
avoiding spraying flowers directly,
because obviously pollinators
will be coming to the flowers,
and that includes weed flowers right. 
Dandelions to us may seem like a weed.
Many gardeners or general 
homeowners would say that,
maybe not as many master 
gardeners, but you know the
dandelion is a great source for
nectar and pollen for honeybees,
and so my yard might be full of dandelions, and the bees love it
so you want to make sure
you're not out there spraying
the dandelions while they're in bloom.
One thing you could do if you have a lawn
like that with a lot of weeds,
is just mow the lawn before
you do your application. Remove
those flower heads so the pollinators
aren't drawn in there
before you're applying.
Another thing you could do like the 
previous publication recommended,
is to spray in the evening, so
going out after those bees are done
foraging for the day, it's starting
 to get cool out, do that application.
And then by the time the 
morning comes around, you know,
there should be less residue 
for them and lower risk.
Obviously if you're spraying
things where bees are overnight,
so as you might be familiar
squash blossoms often will have
bumble bees or other native
bees sleeping in them overnight.
They don't want to check
if it's a situation like that,
make sure there's not actually
pollinators resting on those sites.
Then you'll want to consider the possibility of using granules.
So if you have a product that
could be applied with granules,
granules won't leave a residue
on the leaves around the flowers.
So they are considered to
be lower risk because of that.
And also just be cautious
of the available water.
Pollinators obviously need
water in their environment,
so lots of people are starting to put 
water out in their gardens or their yards
or may just have you know water
features in the yard anyway.
When you're doing an application,
you want to make sure that that water
is not in a situation where it might
get sprayed during that application.
And then also if you have a large
water feature and you're doing
some sort of mosquito treatment
in it, you'll want to investigate
to make sure that that mosquito 
treatment is not going to then cause death
to any pollinators that come and
drink out of that water source.
Okay so now I'm going to move a little bit 
and talk a little about neionicotinoids,
because as you probably know they come 
up in the news a lot related to pollinators.
So what's up with neonicotinoids,
why are they such a big issue?
A little background neonics were originally 
registered as a possible replacement
for organophosphate and older
pesticides that have used for a long time,
but are very high in toxicity to people,
and therefore are high risk for
farmworkers and people who
are working out in the fields.
So neonics are actually much 
lower in toxicity to people,
and so it's a way to have
a product that's lower risk
for those farmworkers
and their family.
But then once we started 
using neonics more,
we started becoming more and more 
aware of the risks of the pollinators.
One thing that's unique 
about neonicotinoids,
is that they last for a
very long time in the soil.
It ranges depending on the 
neonic and the type of soil,
but just as an example, imidacloprid has a
half-life that can range from 40 to 997 days.
So if you extrapolate that out you know 
to the point where the imidacloprid
has broken down and is considered
almost not there anymore
that can rage from about a few months 
up to 13 years. So it's a very long time.
And while it's in the soil,
neonicotinoids are absorbed up
into the plants through their
roots, and then translocated
into the leaves, into the
pollen, and into the nectar.
And that's where they've
become an issue for pollinators.
Because now the pollinators
are coming, and they're you know
getting that nectar or getting that
pollen, bringing it back to their hive
and it has this insecticide in it
and it's causing a lot of problems.
Let me make sure I'm not 
missing anything here,
oh one thing I want to note is
although the neonics may not
always have a lethal level, you
know if they drink them or are
exposed to them directly, that's
an insecticide it can kill these.
But they have found a lot of
non-lethal effects as well.
So these are things like reduced
learning ability, navigational issues,
and also like an anti 
speeding effect to the bees.
And so just reducing their
exposure as much as possible.
Another thing to note is if
you have pests such as aphids,
or something that's eating on the
staff of the plant or on the plant itself,
and then beneficials
come and eat those pests,
they have found some secondary
toxicity risks to those beneficials.
So if you have aphids and then a ladybug 
comes to eat it, and the aphids are now
full of neonics then the ladybug
can also be damaged because of it.
Okay so what's happened. Well the
EPA created this new label back in 2013,
I believe, and specifically
for neonicotinoid products.
So this label has a picture of
a bee it's supposed to be a
visual cue to help people become
aware when they're going to use
the product that there's
a higher risk to pollinators.
So hopefully if you see this label on your 
product, then that's something to key into
and follow those directions specifically 
because there's a higher risk for pollinators.
A couple other things about neonics,
they are used a lot in treated seed.
So like corn seed that's been treated
with them, so that when the corn
starts growing it just absorbs
it straight from the ground.
Which you would think you
know might be low risk for bees,
because bees don't pollinate corn,
but when they're doing the planting
of this a lot of dust can be
produced and that can be
a problem for bees or
other foragers in the area.
And so there's been new
technologies developed both in the
treatment of the seed and 
also the application equipment,
to greatly reduce that
dust that is produced.
And so now I just want to say is there
a reason that we're using neonics,
and is there a place in your garden or your
home where neonics would make sense.
Well there's a couple situations you
can think about if there are other risks
I don't know if I have an example
right now but, if you had a plant that
didn't have flowers it didn't flower, it's just
a landscape plant, you're having really bad
pest problems, that might be a
situation where you could use neonics.
Or if you have like a house plant with 
a really bad infestation of something,
mealy bugs come to mind because
they're kind of hard to control,
then treating the house plant with
neonics is going to be pretty low risk
because you're not going to have pollinators
or beneficials coming into your house plant.
But you'll just want to be considerate
of the fact that it's now in the soil,
and then if that soil gets
move somewhere else
then it might be picked
up by those other plants.
Okay, so I'm going to move
into safe use practices.
I just want to make a note because 
we started late with the webinar,
we're getting close to
11:00 here in pacific time.
So if you have to leave we
completely understand that.
We're going to have Q&A still, we're
going to stick around a little bit later
after the end, and we're still recording
all of this so if you have to leave
don't worry the recording will be
posted on our YouTube channel
within a week probably we're
going to get right on it, so.
Let me bust through the rest of these slides 
and then we'll get to the Q&A session, ok?
Thank you guys for
sticking around again.
Okay so safe use practices.
So if you're using a product
out in your yard, what do
you have to consider.
Or if you have people coming in asking
you questions as a master gardener,
what are some tips you can give them,
ways to empower them to reduce their risk.
The first thing would be to read
the label, and the entire label.
Here is an infographic we have
that just points out some of the
key parts of the label that you
might want to pay attention to.
It's using a mosquito repellant
but it goes for all pesticides
including herbicides,
insecticides, fungicides,
So read through that label you want
to know where the directions are,
how to use it, how it
should be stored, you know.
What are the first aid tips
if something does go wrong.
Become familiar with your products.
Read them before you buy them,
before you apply them, before you
dispose of them, all those different times.
The next thing would be to
choose a low toxicity product.
Now I talked about choosing low
toxicity products for pollinators,
for people it's a much quicker way
to identify something as low toxicity.
All pesticides have a signal
word on the front of their label.
So I'm going to zoom into the corner here,
and you'll see this is the label here,
the signal words pesticide labels
are right on the front of the bottle.
They say either caution, warning,
or danger all in capital letters.
Caution is a lower toxicity product, 
warning is moderately toxic,
and danger is a
high toxicity product.
So when you're buying products,
you can look at that,
just as a quick cue as to
how toxic that product is.
And that's not talking
about the active ingredient,
it's talking about the
formulated product.
So if it's a concentrated product
that's the toxicity of the
concentrated formulation.
Once you dilute it then that
toxicity is obviously going to
go down even further, okay.
So this is a quick way to do
that you can also look at your
antimicrobial products, all pesticides 
have this on the very front label.
Okay the next thing would
be to wear protective clothing.
So when you're going out to spray,
you don't want to dress like this guy.
You don't want to go out with your
short sleeves, and your shorts on
because there's a lot more skin
available if something were to happen
if there was going to be an
accidental spill, or a gust of wind came.
Probably put your chickens up in a way
out of the way so that you don't have
them running around while
you're trying to do an application.
You know, keep things
covered and closed up.
You also probably don't have
to dress like this though,
unless you're applying something really 
highly toxic and the label calls for it.
But for most home use products
this is more of an appropriate outfit.
So something long pants, long sleeved
shirt, some shoes, close toed shoes,
some sort of glove, it could
be rubber gloves, latex gloves.
If you're applying a granular
product, or a dust product
sometimes those cotton
gloves make more sense.
So read the label and see if it says
anything about the gloves on there.
This way you can take those
clothes off at the end of the day
and wash them in case
any residues occurred
and you don't have a chance
of it being on your skin directly.
And you want to mix smartly
and what I mean by smartly is
if you have a concentrated product
and you have to put it in something
like a pump sprayer, do that mixing outside
or some place that's very well ventilated,
and also you know not in an area
where there's a lot of wind or something
just be aware of that and also be
prepared during your mixing so that
if an accident occurred and
that concentrated product spills
you're ready to clean it up right
away. So have gloves on hand,
have some sort of absorbent material,
kitty litter, sawdust, newspapers,
anything like that paper towels, and
then a plastic bag so you can store
all that absorbed, pesticide into something 
safe and dispose of it appropriately
which would be through
household hazardous waste.
Okay next you'll want to prepare
the area, so if you're going to be
applying in your yard or in your
garden, walk through the area
ahead of the application and pick up
anything out there, any dog toys,
dog dishes, kid toys, kids, you know
just get everything out of the area.
If there's furniture or lawn furniture
you can move that away from the
application site or cover it with
a tarp, if there's large equipment
you can cover that with something,
also a sheet can be useful for covering it,
it will absorb the liquids and then
you can wash that sheet to remove it.
So just walk through the area,
make sure everything's
picked up and put away, and
then apply in good weather.
So you don't want to be outside
applying in a big gusty storm,
so just be conscious of that. If it's
really hot out sometimes things will
evaporate quicker, and if it's
really cold out sometimes
things will take longer to
dry and will stick around, so.
Just consider you know what
kind of temperature there is,
and how that might change the
risks and the potential exposure.
And then after the application
make sure that you wash up.
So wash your application
equipment, store it, put all the
concentrated products away, put all
the bottles away, clean up afterwards.
And then also wash yourself.
Take a shower or wash your hands
really well before you eat or drink
obviously, but also before you smoke,
or before you go to the bathroom because 
that's actually a pretty high risk situation.
So just a recap here's all
of those safe use practices.
These are all ways that you
can minimize your exposure
and as we all know now minimizing 
exposure is going to reduce your risk.
And we do these things to protect our 
family, and our loved ones, and our pets.
And you can also share
these with people who are
considering using
products on their own.
We're running short on
time but I want to touch on
going through and doing like
some spring cleaning at the
beginning of the garden season.
So this a picture from an estate sale,
and it's just a good example of
things that might be lying around
in your shed or your garage,
and in this picture you know
some products don't age well. Things
can separate, chemicals can break down,
some chemicals become more
toxic as they're breaking down.
There's one product in the picture
that's very concerning to me.
This was taken I think last year locally at an estate sale,
and I don't know if you guys are familiar enough with pesticides
to see something if anything sticks out
here but right here in the corner
there's a product with diazinon in it.
And diazinon is an organophosphate,
remember when I saying neonics are 
replacing some of those organophosphates,
well back in 2004 I think at the end of 2004 
was the last time that organophosphate
or diazinon products were allowed
to be sold for use in residential areas.
So for outdoor applications and
residential products, that was the last time.
So if this was taken in 2017, and the last
time that could have been purchased
was 2004, then we're talking 13
years this has been sitting on the shelf.
And who knows if that product
is still going to be effective,
or if it's potentially more toxic.
So just going through annually
and inventorying what
you have is a good idea.
Now what do you do if you
find something in there that
you're not sure about,
or you want to dispose of.
The first thing when you go
through and do an inventory
is just to be prepared. 
Again having that absorbent material,
a bag, as things are sitting
bottles become brittle,
things might break, you might be moving
something and it drops and breaks,
you just want to be prepared
in case an accident occurs.
And then if you do find things you
want to dispose of, do that properly.
So use some sort of a plastic tub, or
a box lined with some sort of plastic
to store those materials in until
you can properly dispose of it.
And household products
should be disposed of through
the household hazardous
waste program, and my local
resource database that April 
had mentioned earlier has some
links to find your regional
household hazardous waste.
So we're going to share
that in the email as well.
So store the products until you're
able to dispose of them properly.
And if you have a product
that you're not sure about,
you don't know how old it is, you don't
know maybe you're missing a label,
so you're not sure how to apply
it even if you want to still use it,
if you have specific product questions
you can call either us at NPIC,
or you can call the manufacturer
and ask those questions.
It would be helpful if you have the EPA
registration number for the product,
this is kind of like a social
security number for a product
so it helps us pull up that specific
product. And we can look at, you know,
whether it's something that does
break down and become more toxic,
or may lose its effectiveness
that sort of information.
And then you can decide
what to do with it.
Okay, so, I think we are now
at the end of all of our topics
thank you so much for sticking
with us past the 11:00 hour.
Just a quick recap about
what we talked about,
we've kind of introduced you to NPIC,
we've discussed risk and having
risk communication questions
based questions rather than safety.
We've gone through some
organic pesticide information,
ways to protect pollinators if you're using 
products in your yard or your garden
and then ways to use
products safely overall.
We're going to move into
the questions section,
I think Amy has been writing down 
questions as we've been going.
I just want to say too quickly I'm really
excited about having this webinar,
we've been looking forward
to this for a long time,
and we've had registrations
from over 41 states.
So we have really great coverage across
the county which is really exciting.
If you guys as master gardeners
are ever doing events,
and you want to share our
information, you are welcome to call
and pick that 800 number at the
bottom and request brochures from us
or other materials that we might
be able to send out to you.
We would be happy to do that.
So just keep us in mind,
we're resource you can
use and you can share.
Okay so now we're going to
move on to the questions.
And we have a lot of questions today,
so what I want to emphasize is that
if you haven't already go ahead
and jot down our phone number.
Our hotline today is open for another 
hour, and then of course we're open
Monday through Friday 8:00 to noon pacific 
time which is 11:00 to 3:00 eastern time.
So if we don't get a chance to
answer your specific question today,
go ahead and call our hotline
talk to one of our specialists
and they'll have a more full conversation
with you about that question.
One of the first questions
we received today was about
our pesticides fact sheet,
if we're not medically trained,
how can we comment on for example
carcinogens or other health risks?
Yeah that's a really good point
we're also not medically trained,
but we are scientists. And if
you ever get questions like that
like a health question that you
don't feel comfortable answering,
you can always
refer them to us.
So we are trained in discussing
health risks with people,
and there are a lot of
resources we use to look up
that kind of information on our
fact sheet that she mentioned
there is some information about
cancer and carcinogenicity,
but cancer is a difficult topic
to talk with people about,
so I would recommend that you
send them to us if you're unsure.
And if you have questions on
your own please definitely call us.
And just to clarify all of our fact sheets
are written from scientific sources.
So we're not making up or
creating assessments of
anything ourselves, this is
all assessments done by
regulatory agencies or other
highly reputable agencies.
So another question we received
is do organic pesticides vary
in the level of toxicity, including high
toxicity which would then impact
the level of exposure to have
it remain quote-unquote safe?
Great question yeah that's 
a really good question.
So there's definitely some
variability in the level of toxicity,
and there might be information
on that label that could help you
see what the level of toxicity is.
So maybe looking for those
signal words like Alicia
discussed looking for that word
caution, warning, or danger can
help you see what that level of
toxicity is really quickly just by picking
up that label and checking it out.
There was a question about the
caterpillar next to the aphids.
Alicia do you remember that
was a pest or a beneficial?
Alicia-- The caterpillar?
Amy-- Yeah the caterpillar.
Alicia-- Caterpillars are tricky right 
because they turn into beneficials
once they're flying around and
pollinating, but often as caterpillars
they're still eating our plants so
I don't remember what kind of
caterpillar that was, I'm not
sure but you know yeah. Sorry.
So another question rotenone
was banned a few years ago
after decades of use as an
organic pesticide, are there other
organic pesticides currently
approved but under scrutiny?
Good question and that's
something that may be going on.
The USDA might be a good resource
to ask about whether there's
particular ones that are undergoing
additional scrutiny right now.
The Organic Materials Review Institute, 
OMRI, might have additional information,
but the USDA is the regulator
of the National Organic Program.
And they are the ones that are
setting the rules for what types
of ingredients can and cannot
be used in organic production.
Another question about our fact 
sheets. Do your written fact sheets
incorporate research-based
information contained in the
US National Library of Medicine, 
National Institutes of Health
and Centers for
Disease Control?
Yeah our fact sheets have
resources attached to them,
you can find those at the
bottom of those fact sheets.
The fact sheets aim to follow
what the body of evidence shows.
So we're pulling from lots of
different agencies including the
CDC, the EPA, other bodies of
research that are out there as well.
Yeah we're all scientists here we
all have been trained and being
really particular about where
our data comes from.
And there's a lot of internal review within 
our office between different people
when fact sheets are being written. And 
then some external review as well, so.
We definitely try to get those
as accurate as possible.
Is an EIQ rating applicable to
humans and/or the target pests,
and is there a complete list
of EIQ pesticides available?
I think April might be able to
address this one somewhat.
April-- Yeah I have a little bit
of information about that.
My understanding of the EIQ
incorporates lots of different factors.
Like the toxicity if you were to get
that on the skin, the toxicity if you were
to inhale it, also it incorporates
things like toxicity to fish. So it might-
Amy-- What's it stand for?
April-- Let's see,
Amy-- I think it's environmental impact quotient.
April-- Right.
April-- And those different factors
might not be exactly what you are
concerned about in a situation so
if something made is really high
in toxicity to fish I'm not sure but
maybe that would change that
EIQ rating to be like artificially high.
This is something that I'm not
an expert on I should say. And so
there may be some applications of this.
But in terms of exactly
what it can be used for
maybe we can look into
that a little bit more and,
we can discuss a little bit
further if you'd like to call us.
Yeah calling is a
good option here.
Let's see so you say emphasis
on quote unquote risk,
rather than safety, is not
risk proportional to safety?
Sure it can be related
and it certainly is related.
Sometimes just using the word
safe though can have these
implications attached to it that don't
allow us to see the whole picture.
And using risk helps us see the broader
picture in any such single situation and,
Alicia-- Yeah,
April-- Go ahead Alicia.
Alicia-- I was just going to say I
can see how the term safe itself
is like a yes or no sort
of thing the term safety
maybe incorporates more 
flexibility there like risk.
Except for I would be concerned
that somebody would hear safety.
and walk away
thinking safe, you know.
So I think we we kind of
try and just separate away
from that term all together
and move towards risk
so that we can have those
longer conversations.
So I believe those questions
about the neonicotinoids section,
are other systemic not bringing
ingredients into the nectar?
Oh good question. Yes, so pesticides
that get absorbed into plants
and get moved through the plants
some are very specific where they get
moved to. So some translocate
specifically to the roots,
some only translocate to meristem,
where the plant is developing actively.
So those things are less likely to be
moving into the nectar or the pollen.
So it really depends on an active
ingredient by active ingredient situation.
But that's the sort of thing if you
had a question about we'd be
happy to look up your specific 
active ingredient and look at
where the research shows
it is moving within plants.
Another question don't
neonics break down over time,
in other words at a hundred days
in the soil isn't the potency lower?
Yes definitely so half-life I
kind of threw that in there,
and it's kind of a complicated
thing to consider if you're not
familiar with the term half-life but all chemicals break down at some rate
some things break down very
very slowly, and if that's the case
they'll have a very high half-life.
If they broke down quickly,
then they have a very low halfway
right. Some things break down
within a matter of hours.
So with the imidacloprid example,
I said the half-life was 40 to 997 days.
So the half-life is how long it takes for
half of the chemical to break down.
So definitely after 40 days or 900
wherever it falls on that
spectrum, you know half of it is gone
and that is a lower risk
because there's less available.
when I extrapolated into you know 
breaking it down almost completely
we say after five half-life that
brings you down to about 3%.
So half-life if you picture 
like a pie the first half-life
you cut that pie in half
and you eat half of it.
The second half-life you cut the remaining 
half in half, and then you eat that half.
And now you've just got a quarter
of the pie that's after 2 half-lifes.
Then you're going to cut that in
half again, and take half of it away
that's 3 half-lifes and you continue
like that until it's almost gone.
So 5 half-lifes gets you down to 3%
of their originally applied product.
So definitely over time it's
decreasing and there is lower risk.
Are there any studies on
neonics toxicity in people?
Yes. I mean yeah, it's definitely. They
are required to do toxicity studies
with people or on animals, and
the extrapolate that to people.
There are most of the data that
we have access to related to people
specifically have to do with either 
accidental or intentional ingestion.
You know poisoning situations
or situations where people
spill it on their skin or situations like
that so there is data that we can access
on each you know neonicotinoids
and see what's available.
It kind of just ranges we don't in
science often poison people to pass on
how it goes I mean that there's
a lot of restrictions there so.
Okay. Is it not important considering
the risk or safety of pesticides
to be aware not only of the acute
risks or safety, but also to the
chronic or long-term risks or safety
associated with the pesticides
and particularly what about
research based information.
Absolutely again there are
requirements for testing on
chronic levels of toxicity,
subchronic levels of toxicity.
I think today we were
focusing more on that acute
framing things with that
acute toxicity in mind,
but our fact sheets do have a 
section about the long-term risks
and what are the long term symptom
effects of different pesticides,
so you might consider checking
those out to see some of the research
that has been done, there's
a lot of research out there
about that type of work
about that type of question.
So this person writes, I have awful
Japanese beetles I saw that sevin will
kill them but I want to be careful as a
bees. What ingredients should we use or
avoid that is still effective on the
beetles but that's safe for our pollinators?
Who wants to tackle that one?
That's a good question,
because you know insecticide,
I'm not familiar with a product
that's been designed that
only affects Japanese beetles.
That's technology that they're working
on right now to try and develop
pesticides that are specific to a species of
insects, and will not harm other species.
So there is research going
into the developing of that.
The RNAi research, but right
now most of the pesticides
I can think of would affect both.
There are pesticides that are specific
to groups of species so things
that would affect beetles
but not affect bees something
that would have to be
something they ingest so like
BT or something like that.
Yeah but there's also ingredients
that are intended to be
applied during certain life stages so for 
example there's an active ingredient
called chlorantraniliprole that is a
granular product that gets applied
to lawns and is targeting
the grub stage while the
Japanese beetles have not yet
emerged. And so that theoretically
is not just specific to beetles but
it's also targeting a life stage
that bees wouldn't be interacting with so 
there may be options that the toxicity isn't
specific but the contact or the
exposure it's specific to be told.
Okay so we have we have a lot more
questions we're going to try to get
through maybe three more, and then
the remainder of the questions
again I'll encourage you to
go ahead and write down
your own question, write down our
phone number, call us on our hotline
today or tomorrow or any
time that's convenient for you
to get your questions answered but we'll 
pick maybe three more to respond to.
What is the effect of
fungicides on native bees?
Yeah good question there's
a lot of research showing
that fungicides can affect
development of honeybees,
broods they can stick around
in the wax of honeybees.
Now native bees may have a different
potential exposure because of that,
I would have to look it up. You should
call NPIC and we can look up and see
what research has been done specifically
on native bees with fungicides.
I'm not sure off the
top of my head.
Okay, so this next question
is I think widely applicable
gardeners are worried about buying
ornamental plants that have been
treated with neonics. Is this a real concern
and how do we address it with them?
That's a great question. As
you're probably familiar a lot of
big-box stores have been starting 
to deem their, make sure that
they're selling plants that
will have a label that says
something like, bee friendly,
or pollinator friendly
and that's because they haven't
been treated with neonicotinoids,
but that doesn't mean they haven't
been treated with other pesticides,
so just be aware of the fact that
they may still have products on them,
but it's probably not something that's
going to be sticking around in the soil.
If they are buying plants that
are going to be used indoors
you can talk about the
differences and risks there,
if they're buying plants that
are going to be put outside,
there are some things they can
do to reduce substantial exposure
to pollinators, so if the soil was treated
in this potted plant they're buying,
they can wash that soil off before they 
plant it, bag it up and throw it away.
And that would remove a lot
of that pesticide and reduce the
amount that could be
absorbed up into the plant.
So anything they can think of
to reduce the amount that is there,
are some options, and you can also you 
know feel free to send them to us
because if they're buying small
potted plants the amount of neonics
in there by that time that plant is huge
and flowering might be very small.
And the risks
might be very low.
Okay so if you launder
pesticide coated clothing,
will pesticides run into the
sewer system, and does this
water treatment system
remove pesticides?
A very similar question I'm
going to add on to that,
does clothing sprayed with
pesticides effect pollinators?
These are both physical
clothing questions.
Alicia-- Yeah good question.
Do you want to do that?
April-- sure sure I'll start so 
washing, clothing that's washed
and water that runs into a water
treatment facility is treated.
And there are certain levels that need
to be reached for certain pesticides.
So those levels have to be low in water. You
could contact your local water treatment
facility and they might have additional
information on the types of pesticides
that they are testing for
and they might be able to
provide you with that data,
depends on the area I believe.
Yeah I think generally if you
are out doing an application,
and you get some pesticides
on your clothes, you can think
about the amount that's going
into the water and the amount of
water that's coming from other
places and it's gonna be quite diluted.
But there are definitely
things that break it down.
Some things break down on water 
naturally and some things don't.
If you are out doing an application,
I didn't really mention this,
but if you get a lot of pesticides on
your clothes you'll want to wash those
separate from the rest of your clothes.
So do a laundry load by itself and then
add as hot of water as possible with a
strong detergent and if possible hang
those clothes up outside to dry because
sun we'll help break down those
chemicals much faster than
putting them in the dryer would.
And the second part of
the question was about
treating your clothes so it's like if
you use permethrin or something
on your clothes like a permethrin
spray that's meant to treat fabric
to control ticks or mosquitoes, those bind 
really tightly to those clothes particles.
They're not likely to be moving off
of your clothes into other areas,
the risks would be if you're
going to say a butterfly garden,
you probably don't want to wear
your permethrin treating clothes,
but otherwise the risks would be
really low. Basically if they're landing
on you directly that's where their
highest risk would come from.
Right. They have to contact you
it's not something but it's off
gassing into the environment they
 need to land on you directly.
Okay unfortunately we just
have so many questions today,
and we're really grateful
for all of those questions.
Please call us at 800-858-7378 if
we didn't get a chance to talk about
your question but unfortunately we've
kind of run out of time today and I want
to thank everybody for joining us.
Yeah, we're going to put
together a follow-up email so if there's
any of these questions that are things
we could answer in email we'll try and
include those gonna follow up okay.
Thank you guys all for coming.
