Watch it on YouTube: Imidacloprid, a Bird and Bee Toxin Featured in a New German News Doc, Doubles in Use on Wine Grapes in California

This week, my YouTube feed offered up this sobering 30 min. documentary on a commonly used insecticide called imidacloprid. It is toxic to bees and birds and in Europe, it is widely banned. Not so here in the U.S. where the corn lobby has made sure to keep it legal so it can continue using seeds coated with the insecticide.

Meanwhile in California, wine grape growers are seeing an increased number of vine mealybugs. Often brought in by ants, vine mealybugs also bring with them leafroll virus, the virus that used to scare the wine industry the most until the current corona virus surfaced.

I've been researching the pros and cons of different farming practices in the fight to combat the vine mealybug in California vineyards.

Imidacloprid use has doubled from 2009 to 2017 and wine grape growers alone used more than 79,818 pounds on 258,653 acres of wine grapes in 2017 (the most recent year that data is available for).

I'll be writing more about this topic in the coming days, but let's start with the video, as it lays the foundation for the rest of the story.