Survey of Pesticide Usage on Fruits in Korea

In order to get the actual pesticide usage data for fruit crops at farmer's gate, this survey was carried out on the growers of 6 representative fruit crops such as apple, citrus, grape, peach, pear and persimmon, in Korea. One hundred fifty farmers were selected in main production areas to record their pesticide usage during the growing seasons. Pesticides were sprayed in pear 15.2 times/year and persimmon 7 times/year. Pesticide input amount per unit for fruits was 39.5 for citrus, 22.1 for apple, 21.5 for pear, 11.9 for peach, 10.8 for persimmon and 6.7 a.i. kg/ha for grape, respectively. The amounts of pesticides sprayed in 2002 except for peach and pear tend to decrease compared with those in 1999. The major fungicides used were mancozeb, propineb, dithianon, etc., while the major insecticides were fenitrothion, chlorpyrifos, methidathion, etc. Total active ingredients of pesticides used for six fruit crops amounted to 18.3% of total sales amount of pesticides for horticulture in 2002. The amounts of pesticides sprayed on citrus, grape, peach and pear in Korea was less than those in U.S.A., excepting those in apple.