Live stevia plants you can grow yourself, plus stevia extract powder from their plants, and certified organic whole and cut stevia leaves and stevia leaf powder.”These new Stevia plants are the result of 8 years cross pollination and selection to produce a crop with very low Stevioside content and a very high Rebaudioside A content…Thus we have eliminated the bitterness or after taste as well as improving the sweetness. Super Sweet Stevia has a cleaner sweetness.” The website doesn’t say that the plants are organic, but here is what the owner had to say about his growing practices in an email to me: “Our Stevia plants can not be considered “certified organic” because we use chemical fertilizers on them. The Stevia plants in our plant production cycle never get planted in the ground. They are grown in pots on elevated benches outside during the summer and brought into the greenhouse for the winter. Outdoors they are not bothered by insects so we have no need to spray. However indoors, during the winter, white fly is a problem and we do spray with “Pyreth-It”. This pesticide is made from the Pyrethrum Daisy and is approver for use on organic crops. We use Pyreth-It only as needed as our first line of defense is Lady Bugs and other beneficials that we have been selling for years. At no time would I ever stop one of my grand kids from going out to the greenhouse and eating a leaf from the Stevia plants. Of course they have been tough to watch out for Lady Bugs and not eat them.”
