What's the difference in pesticides and fertilizer?

Question

just wondering because i have to do a paper on chemistry in agriculture.

Answer 1

Pesticides= harmful chemicals to kill pests and help protect plants.

Fertilizer= Compost or mulch to add to the soil to aid plant growth

Answer 2

Its real simple. Pesticides kill pests that eat and/or harm the plant. Fertilizer is plant food for the plant to make it grow up and beyond just soil. Fertilizer boost yields like crazy.

Answer 3

Pesticides are chemicals that kill the pest and increase the yield.

Fertilisers are those substances which are  added to the plants for their better growth.

Answer 4

Fertilizer gives your plant the nutrients it needs to survive.  Pesticides kill bugs, including sometimes the bugs your plants need to pollinate. If your soil has all the nutrients it needs, you don't need so much pesticide.  If you use lots of pesticide, you will deplete your soil of nutrients.

Answer 5

Pesticides may be used with the intent of helping specific plants, the crop, to grow by killing competing plants, plants that use up soil and sun that could be used to grow the crop. These are herbicides.

We have pesticides to prevent crop diseases, like mold and s**t. Now this can simply improve crop quality, it can greatly improve crop yield, or can save the crop from complete failure.

Insecticides are of course the pesticide most often mentioned negatively. While some are intended to kill insects that eat the roots or stems of crops, and can completely destroy the crop, we also have insects that invade the fruits, and may make the fruits unacceptable to consumers, so unacceptable that they will not buy them, or having bought them will not eat them.  

Pesticide like rat and mouse poison is used to keep foodstuff from being eaten or contaminated with mouse and rat dung, hair and carcasses.

Now fertilizer is not intended to kill or inhibit anything. It is nutrients that plants use to grow you some food. Fertilizers often provide only 1, 2, or 3 out of 16 nutrients plants need, so that use of these partial fertilizers is linked to depletion from the soil of the other nutrients that are produced too slowly by decomposition of the rock base of the soil.

In hydroponic farming we aim to supply all nutrients the individual crop needs in very close to optimum ratios.

We have pesticides growing in many plants, so that for instance tomato and potato plants produce insecticides that protect those plants. But we can also grind up those plants and produce a spray to protect other crops at key times... part of their effectiveness is achieved by making the other crop unattractive to the insect.

Pesticides can be something as non-toxic as a dust that clogs the pores of insects, or a sulphur dust to reduce mold on corn fields. (The sulphur is also considered a fertilizer component.)

Answer 6

Pesticides kill bugs and pests and fertilizer helps plants grow. It is as simple as that. Any answers that are more involved are overstating the solution.

Answer 7

Pesticides are a chemical used to kill a pest, such as an insect or a bacteria. Fertilizer is a chemical or substance used to help the growth and production of a plant

Answer 8

You will not receive enough info in this column to complete a paper but hopefully you will pull a few good ideas.  Pesticides have come a long ways over the past 30-40 years.  Much of the use must pass stingent guidelines from the FDA as the crops grown will be used within the food industry.  With the new generation of GMO seed traits farmers are able to reduce the amount of pesticides that are used for crop production.  Google GMO or Monsanto and you will find much information.  The same goes for herbicides.  The products on the market today have changed dramatically in the past decades.  We have "Round-up Ready Soybeans" now and as the name indicates we can use Round-up on the soybean crop and that has helped to increase the production potential of the crop, reduce costs and have a safer end product.  Again this use of the product is through the GMO (genetically modified organisms) traits developed  in part by Monsanto.  I am not technical enough to give you scientific differences but as you research these topics realize that the new technologies are benefiting farmers (obviously with added expense) and in turn benefiting those of us that eat this food.

Answer 9

Pesticides is a plant or animal detrimental to humans or their crops.While fertilizer to make fertile so that the plants will grow faster.