Just a note to all that use it to remember that Bordeaux mixture will be removed from sale at the end of Febuary although it will be legal to use and store for another two years.
Get some in now if you need to..
Wow! What else is there still allowed to combat blight?
Why is it being banned? (Not complaining- I'm sure there's a good reason .. copper based? chemistry was my worst enemy at school!)
Advertised as the replacement for Dithane is Bayer's Fruit & Vegetable Disease Control. Seems it's active ingredient is Copper oxychloride. I'm not sure how similar this is to Bordeaux?
Forgot to add this, http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/dithane-945-replacement
This is an even clearer example than usual that safety considerations are NOT the issue when it comes to removing tried, tested, simple and more importantly CHEAP solutions to problems that are a potential gold-mine for commercial suppliers.
There are those who believe copper is a problem - but this news proves that copper is not the problem:
Any argument that copper oxychloride is safer than the copper hydroxide or carbonate in bordeaux mix (or burgundy) is laughable; (in my opinion - having spent my entire working life in Science - copper's opponents are all wildly mistaken or naive anyway, or they might have another agenda - paid or unpaid Trolls).
Every one of the complex remedies of the last 50 years has been proved to have insidious and (more importantly) persistent health problems - the only way to make big money is to bring out something new in a market where there is no alternative - and make money hand over fist until the health dangers appear a few years later.
Cheers.
PS. It is dead easy to make a safe chemical illegal - you simply refuse to fund its regular checking schedule - because it costs more than the profits. Of course this method is also used to quietly kill off dangerous substances 'for commercial reasons' before the groundswell of anecdotal evidence interests the press.
Further to Vinlanders ps. It is easy to make a safe chemical illegal,by force feeding it to rats and mice until it kills them, then you claim it is unsafe for humans.
Get copper sulphate and slaked lime from eBay, and the recipe from Wikipedia, then roll your own. No need to go without!
Well said Vinlander, trouble is its going to happen more as a select goup of campanies buy up patents then let them lapse. Iam alreadty down that route robert. As an example a drug has erecently been banned in the usa & europe on "safety" grounds, 12 months before an identical product was released by an american company coincidence or what.