Question
Two part question:
(1)What is the best organic weed pre-emergent control method for southern states (spec e. Texas)that will not cause any other lawn problems such as fungus, etc.? (2)If a fruit bearing plant/tree is accidentally sprayed at the base with a chemical weed pre-emergent (dormant winter season) what is the proper thing to do..spray with water...don't eat the fruit?
My husband is for chemicals,,,I am strongly against and he had the lawn sprayed and the trunk of my young Fuji apple tree was sprayed. I am upset that the yard was sprayed for one, but then to so carelessly spray my tree is just unsettling. If it survives, will the apples contain traces of that chemical?

Answer
I apologize for not responding to this more promptly, but unfortunately, Sandy, you've got 2 questions here and both require very involved answers to hit the nail on the head.  I'm going to do my best to give you the Reader's Digest versions for both of them, because I am under a space constraint here (they cap the replies here, and you can see why -- especially for someone like me).  If you have a followup, which you should, please address each question individually.  That way makes it easier for other people to use the answers, too.

First: The most effective Organic pre-emergent for the East Texas Lawn.

Good thing you narrowed that down. Growing a Lawn in this great big state depends first and foremost on where you want to grow it.  It is my understanding that you can divide Texas into basically 5 sharply contasting climatic regions.  They all have their own ecosystems and growing seasons.

There's the drought-prone, dusty North Plains.

There's West Texas, home to flat, dry, tumbleweed-rich Trans-Pecos/Big Bend area.  Site of El Paso and the Rio Grande.

There's the rainy subtropical East.  That includes the endangered Pine Belt.

There's flood-prone Central Texas ("Hill Country"), including Austin. The thin layer of Soil there is perfect for growing wine.

And finally, there's the Southeast Coastal Plains.  San Antonio is part of this landscape.  The growing season can last 300 days or longer.

I need your zipcode to really narrow things down, or at least confirm I'm right about any of this, so if you do follow up, please include it.  Rain, Soil and temperature determine your Grass, and they all determine what kinds of Weeds you need to control, which narrows down your options.  "Pre-emergent" weedkiller is one way to get rid of Weeds, but there are many others.  The kind of Grass you are trying NOT to kill -- the stuff your Lawn is made of -- is a critical detail that I cannot guess about; if you use the wrong weedkiller, you will join the ranks of thousands of other homeowners who have wiped out their own Lawns with Weedkiller that works great on some kinds of Grass and kills the Grass on other Lawn species, along with the Weeds.

For now, I am going to guess you are in the Pine Belt/Piney Woods.  It's bigger, it's Eastward, plus you are growing Fuji apples.  USDA Zone 8.

As you may know, pre-emergents only work on Annual Weeds.  The idea is that they screw up the life cycles of newly sprouting seeds, just as they sprout.  Pre-emergents can't work on Dallisgrass ('Paspalum dilatatum' to scientists), which is a perennial.  They can't work on Weeds that spread with underground runners.  They CAN work on sprouting Seeds of a Dallisgrass plant that grew there year and flowered. THIS is Dallisgrass:

botany.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/image/k4652600.htm

Those photos courtesy Texas A&M, center of one of the world's leading research centers devoted to Lawn Care and Weed Control.

So you see, there are limitations in any chemical you use to fight weeds.  Figure that this is one of a menu of chemicals your husband would like to use to make his Lawn look like the picture on a package of Scott's Turfbuilder.

You know why this is, don't you?

It's because their commercials are breathtaking.

Scotts Miracle-Gro is the biggest Lawn/Garden care company on the planet.  It owns Scotts, it owns Miracle-Gro, it owns Ortho and Sterns, Peters and Earthgro, Osmocote and Hyponex.  Plus it packages and promotes Roundup all over the world.  Who WOULDN'T want a Lawn that looks like those imaginary Scotts photos?

Without a new course of action, my friend, you're fighting a losing battle.  Reason: The Lawn Care Industry figured out years ago who was taking care of the family Lawn: Homeowner.  Male.  Aged 35 to 64.  Upper middle class, lives in the suburbs.  He puts out the garbage. He shovels the snow.  He does the cooking on the BBQ.  Not you, Sandy.  Him.  And they have spent a bundle making him their friend.

Can you win this argument?

Suppose your husband wanted to take steroids.  Lots of top athletes have taken them and played in the Olympics, right?  They've won the World Series, they've scored in the Superbowl.  Tell me, what vitamins or health plan are you going to put on the table to counter results like that?

He wants to put steroids on the Lawn?

How can you win this?

There's the argument that the Steroids are bad.  Since this is the Readers Digest version, and I haven't even begun on Question #2, I'm going to quote a writer from Forbes a few years ago.  Reporting on Scotts's announcement that it would build a solid niche in Organic products, she wrote:

'The active ingredient in Scotts Turf Builder with Plus 2 Weed Control is 2,4-D, which is made from Dichlorophenol and Acetic Acid.  It can kill Dandelions, but it's nasty stuff, capable of causing nervous system, kidney and liver damage in humans.  It would also be a bad idea to ingest Acephate, used in Ortho Orthene Fire Ant Killer.  That could cause nausea, dizziness and confusion...'

Here's the URL:

www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0904/066.html

Ask your husband: WHY would a big company like Scotts pour research dollars into Organic products that are going to cost far more to make (compared with those dirt-cheap India-produced  powders and liquids) AND are guaranteed, if successful, to displace those products with new ones that have a much lower profit marging and can't possibly make them as much money?

He should think about that. Because surprise surprise Scotts is indeed getting more and more Organic.

That idea is neatly put forth by Wall Street Journal reporter Gwendolyn Bounds in one story last year (thankfully, pre-Murdoch):

'I'm standing in the midst of a grassy, windswept field in Marysville, Ohio, holding what could be the next killer app in lawn care.  It's a vial of herbicide made from a sustainable, natural source ? Canadian Thistle fungus ? and it's designed to wipe out Clover, Dandelions and other broadleaf Weeds without damaging Grass.

'If plans stay on track, the product ? code-named CBH, for Canadian Bioherbicide ? could reach America's lawns as soon as 2011.  If so, it will be a pivotal moment in the fast-moving evolution of naturally derived lawn and garden products in the U.S.  In no small way, success will hinge on the marketing heft of its formulator, lawn and garden giant Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., whose labs supply much of what the world's homeowners buy each year in a quest to keep their Grass green, plants plentiful and homes pest-free.'

Yes, it looks like Scotts has waked up and smelled the coffee.

Because while chemicals might be good for killing Weeds, they're murder on lots of other things, too.  Dogs.  Birds.  Squirrels.  Rabbits.  Children.

Back to your pre-emergents product preferences question.

Right now, Corn Gluten Meal, which I've written about extensively, is the most widely used.  It won't hurt anyone -- unless you're a sprouting Weed.

But there are other ways to get rid of Weeds.  If your Soil is 'pure' enough -- if it isn't laced with anything that would make Earthworms et al. sick to their stomachs (or worse) -- it will generate its own nutrients to grow Grass that's thick and healthy.  Weeds sprout on bare Soil.  If they can't get to the Soil, or once there if they can't get to the Sun, they just don't grow at all.  Annual or not.

Shots of Vinegar has its backers (that's a 20 percent solution of REAL Vinegar -- mere Supermarket Vinegar is only 5 percent strength).  The stuff may be potent enough to burn your skin if splashed, but it's Earth-friendly.  It also does a SUPERIOR job of spot-killing Crabgrass, Canadian Thistle and Dandelions around here.  Superior to Round-Up, in fact. Without the side effects.

For those Weeds that do sprout, my FAVORITE new weed-weapon is the hand-held flame-thrower.  Just aim and shoot.

OK, it's not quite like that.

These 'flames' are propane torches, with backpack tanks, and flames sort of like the ones you use to light the grill for a BBQ.

And they don't really work by burning the Weed.  Instead, they heat them enough to cook them.  During the next few hours, the leaves wilt, and a day later the Weed collapses and dies.

Sort of like a modern version of colonial slash-and-burn.

One supplier, well known:

www.flameengineering.com/

I got mine on Amazon.com.

Like other Organic techniques, this is still CHEAPER than 20th-century, anti-American 2,4-D and its friends.

Let's jump now to Question #2:  If you accidentally treat your fruit tree to pre-emergent, what should you do?  Will "the chemical" get into the fruit?

Tsk tsk, I'm sure you've already read the riot act to the human responsible for that error.  But these things happen.  If your tree survives (and it almost certainly will -- if these don't kill Dandelions, they won't kill your trees -- but then, "the chemical" is a mystery noun at the moment so you will have to give me that detail, or I can't really be sure), how much of that chemical will channel up through the tree and into the fruit?

Well, on one hand, you could say that Texas topping the charts of polluted property, what difference would it make if the apples were tainted and you fed them to the kids?  By the time they're finished breathing at the end of the day, rolling in the Roundup on the Lawn, how much worse could it be?

On the other hand, that's also a solid argument for NOT using these chemicals.

Texas is a pretty big piece of property.  If they cleaned it up -- if they stopped using those things you don't want to use -- think of how wonderful that would be.  Not just for you guys in Texas, but for us guys on Long Island, and those guys over there in New Jersey (pew!), and up the Hudson River near that house where gardener/writer Gwendolyn Bounds lives.

In a nutshell, I can only guess.  And due to space constraints... today... I cannot go into the facts that would help you feel better, only that it depends on the chemical, how long it typically stays in the ground, and whether it will still be present when your tree is making fruit.  More information from you will get us there.

Anyway, it's lunchtime now, and you're probably starving.  I am too.

Several questions are still pending.  Please post them separately as a separate question and not as a followup, so that I can give them the full LIG treatment.

OK, it's longer than Reader's Digest, but I'm not done.  rsvp,

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER