Costs of conventional versus low input peach production in the Eastern United States

Peaches (Prunus perisca) in the eastern U.S. are a high value crop encompassing 32,800 bearing ha, or 52% of the national total (fresh and processing). The 1999 eastern peach crop was valued at $191 million U.S. Eastern peach production is centered in three main areas: the upper mid-West (MI), the mid-Atlantic (NJ, PA) and the Southeast (GA, NC, SC). Peaches constitute a major component in the diets of infants and children. Implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 has and will continue to limit reliance on organophosphate insecticides, which have been the foundation of pest management programs for the past forty years. The project evaluated the cost of pest management systems based on reduced-risk tactics that combine the use of turf ground cover to manage catfacing insects and mating disruption for oriental fruit moth. Previous research and experience indicated that these systems would be effective, sustainable, economically viable, and led to enhanced biological control. Overall, insecticide use in RR plots was about 41% of that used in conventional plots across all varieties. When the cost of the pheromone mating disruption dispensers are added, the picture changes. The cost of materials for the reduced risk program ranged from $119.34 higher than the conventional treatment in 'Bounty' to $7.96 less than the conventional treatment in 'John Boy'. The reduced risk treatments required less labor than the conventional treatments across all varieties. The per hectare analysis of cost of product and application of insecticides and/or mating disruption (pheromone dispensers strategies) in the conventional and reduced risk programs produce a mixed result. When the two programs are compared to the four varieties of peaches, the reduced risk program demonstrates a lower cost in the three varieties: 'Redhaven', 'John Boy' and 'Encore'.