The Pyrethrum Post CD-ROM 1948–99 is available from:

Friends of Pyrethrum Ltd, The Bungalow, Stoke Road, Aylesbury Bucks HP21 7TE UK
Tel: +44 (0)1296 423795, Fax: +44 (0)1296 580193
Mobile: 07770 878497

Email: agj@friendsofpyrethrum.co.uk

Update now runs on XP/Vista/7

Cost: 1 for £55; 2–5 £40 or $140; 6-10 £35.

Update from previous version: £10

See below for a review of the CD.

Friends of Pyrethrum bank details:
Account Name: Friends of Pyrethrum Ltd
Account Sort Code: 600131
Account No: 50575511
Bank: NatWest, 22 Market Square, Aylesbury, Bucks HP20 1TR

Review of CDROM by D Maciver
For years the unavailability of editions of Pyrethrum Post has been a constant irritation to users, and researchers of natural pyrethrum. Many early editions have long been out of print and newer editions have been sporadically available. Now, this has disappeared thanks to a new CD-ROM ‘Pyrethrum Post’ which contains all volumes of the journal from 1948 to 1999*.One easily navigates the CD-ROM in the same way as with a digitized encyclopedia – by keywords and subjects. There is also a browse facility and the usual page turning icons. Text and diagrams are excellent. The photographs accompanying the articles are rather disappointing in quality but still acceptable. Here, is contained all the important papers on Pyrethrum from the agronomics of cultivation and propagation to the uses and structural niceties of the individual insecticidal pyrethrins analogs. One can read about the use of pyrethrum to disinfest water mains to its use in public health and industrial applications. There are reviews of the methods of refining pyrethrum extract as well as evaluations of various synergists and their development.

The Pyrethrum Post was entirely sponsored and financed by the Kenya pyrethrum industry, not as a simple trade journal or company flier, but as a serious scientific monitor of all current aspects of pyrethrum. It was freely available upon request to all seriously interested parties. More unusual is that Kenya industry was not the only producer of pyrethrum. And in 1949 when the US Department of Agriculture announced the synthesis of Allethrin, a synthetic which attempted to emulate natural pyrethrins, the Pyrethrum Post diligently reported it together with a picture of the inventors, Drs. Schechter and LaForge. Nowadays, it is hard to imagine a leading synthetic manufacturer giving this kind of publicity to a potential rival.

Though the pyrethrum industry in Kenya has suffered ups and downs in its production, the interest in natural pyrethrum remains firm. It has a very long track record of safety in the home; it is fast acting and degrades rapidly in light. Pyrethrum fits closely to what the US Environmental Protection Agency might define as a model for the ideal insecticide.