Is Monterey Take Down Spray organic?

[MSchep]

Hi All,
Based on strong positive comments online for the performance of Monterey Take Down Spray (here and other forums), I've ordered some to use on my tomato plants. When the Amazon box arrived, my wife opened it and expressed concern about it not being labeled "Organic".

I know there is largely a marketing and certification element to being able to call something "Organic", but I believe that Take Down is natural and safe. My goal is to garden organically...small "o", because I don't care about the bureaucratic certification process, but do want to avoid synthetic and potentially toxic pesticides and additives.

I'm having trouble finding definitive statements either way, so I thought I'd check here to see if there is any information you all may have seen about Take Down for organic gardening, and any links you can help provide to convince a skeptical better half?

Thanks in advance...

Schep

[Scooty]

It's major component is pyrethrin. Doesn't look they added any booster or anything. Safer Brand Tomato & Vegetable Insect Killer has the same stuff but is OMRI listed.

Organic vs conventional is a complex subject. Rotenone was once used for certified organic farming, but stopped after they realized it was bad for human health. So chemicals we deem safe now, may not always be so in the future. And there's a secondary issue regarding concentration, if you're spraying 10x the necessary dosage used for say pyrethrin just to get say.... aphids under control, it's hard to say if that's safer than using a small amount of conventional product.

It's easy to get hung up on semantics. Organic vs organic. Ideally, no spray or low spray is the best practice if you're truly aiming for organic and sustainable practice. Even organic sprays that use pyrethrin can be harmful for bees and other pollinators. Spray purposefully for the parts of the plant that need and in the area of the garden infected. Don't "carpet bomb" and spray every plant.

Also a word of warning... pyrethrin while natural and even certified for organic (for certain products), is toxic to cats (it's functionally a feline neurotoxin). Also, it's toxic to fish, so I hope you don't have an immediate pond run off. It breaks down in a couple of hours but that's in full sunlight, so bear that in mind.

[Cole_Robbie]

I agree with everything you said, Scooty, except I think Rotenone is still organic. They're phasing it out in the US, which is mostly complete. But non-US growers have been given a multi-year extension to comply. So there is probably still produce at any grocery store labelled organic that has been sprayed with Rotenone.

[Scooty]

You're right, i don't think it's use has completely stopped or been delisted from organic use. Not sure if it's OMRI or another organic cert. I was under the impression though the phase out as you said was ongoing, and it's mostly used in organic poultry farming right now, not in produce argi, but I haven't really kept up with the news about it's use.

[MSchep]

Thanks for the feedback, this is definitely a complex subject, and with so much marketing out there (on both sides of the debate) very hard to find un-biased material or data to study.