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shonman

O zone and other alt pest control / disinfectants

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I have used ozone to disinfect water, and maybe disinfect my hydroponic system a bit.

i understand it can also kill bugs...

although, one must be careful not to kill the plants or oneself (if that is not the goal ) by too high a concentration for too long.

diffusing ozone in water seems to kill the fungi etc, and can be circulated through a hydroponic of ebb and flow system.

am also interested in other effective ways to kill pests, that leave no trace...

some have discussed specially attuned water, with a certain frequency.

i don't know much about that.

it would be great if I could just tune some sound to a certain frequency, and kill bugs on plant somehow .

so, in this thread, I am asking.....how do you kill pests, without pesticides?

my number one answer would be, establish a colony of predatory insects to continously eat the pests.

has anyone else used ozone, or other cosmic means for this purpose of killing unwanted bugs?

ozone has been used in pest control, for fleas and bed bugs effectively....

Edited by shonman
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fire is a fave one , but not always so great for the plants getting burnt if too slow on the lighter hold duration and movement speed (avoiding getting slashed by tricho spines- not always) , in small flamethrower bursts, this has been the least damaging way of clearing cobwebs from the werdermannianus particularly and any others applicable . for some reason terscheckii is a lot harder to flame throw but come to think of it it's probably the extra long spined valle fertile san huan's that really insist it's a bad idea for a reg lighter..  perhaps a bbq lighter would suffice with a faster trigger ignition and simple shut off by letting go of the button, like a little gun to blast the nastie basties

...kills bugs fast  :) burns plants tho

 

D-limonene watered down a lot (can burn your cacties if you do it in full sun or at too high a strength, probably other plants too)

 

Sluggo as in: yoo fahck'un sluggah .. probably commercial to some, but just oddball n' obscure to me

 

Bog frog once told me the best tip for eradicating scale from me ruun forrest bokz: squish the waxy little buggers by hand , this took like maybe a year or something but I slew em all off in the end without spraying anything..

aa'kin champion tip that was , never seen scale since.

 

I don't really know how far this will go but I often burn a half palo santo stick in most of my enclosed chamber groweries and to a lesser extent due to concentration; the rooms that have plants in.. sometimes I burn syrian rue seed too in the hope that it's vapours will not only cleanse me :)

 

Is sulphur very wideley used or maybe considered alternative? if applicable - that one to the list too.

particularly EG's sulphur and alcohol spidermite tek which destroys them that he posted on here years ago...

-never seen spidermites since.

 

nematodes , although sluggo has negated having to buy the nematodes against slugs which didn't hit snails because sluggah slays 'em awll *wide eyed stares to enhance the muahahahahaaaaa those bug/ger/s will be slain.

 

2mm large headed Florida ants pretty much keep anything other than the plants from living in the RFB.. except that scale I had to squish off without accidentally getting the ants.

 

will add more if I can think of it

 

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Excellent, thanks!

one of my favorite methods of pest control

is to establish a population of insects that eat the pests.

if done right, it can be self regulating.

the more pests there are, the more insect eaters there are too.

this was all going supremely well

until I had to clean everything and move.....which removed beneficial insects too

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The two spotted thrip is not often considered , but is an excellent beneficial insect.

the other year, I took plants outdoors in summer.

the bugs that wanted to effectively eat pests on my plantd

showed up on their own, did a great job,

and were brought indoors later.

it might be possible to attract local beneficial insects

by leaving a pest infested plant outdoors

then see what shows up to eat pests, and let those insects get established.

if pests are mostly under control,

take plant back to other plants , and let insects that eat pests get set up.

or, just take all the plants outside, if pests are going away as opposed to showing up more .

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On 11/13/2017 at 4:41 AM, ☽Ţ ҉ĥϋηϠ₡яღ☯ॐ€ðяئॐ♡Pϟiℓℴϟℴ said:

Is sulphur very wideley used or maybe considered alternative? if applicable - that one to the list too.

 

 

I used sulphur burners on a timer with good efficacy in commercial planthouses. It's not 100% but it did reduce the amount of spraying I needed to do by 80%. Sulphur gas is toxic tho, you need to be sure once your closed room is treated the gas vents safely somewhere no-one is going to breathe it ( ie- innocent bystanders ) , and vented entirely before you enter the room.

 

There may be species sensitive to the topical application of sulphur- I never worked with any. Over time ( a decade ) it may degrade some metals, like plant stands, slightly

 

The presence of residual sulphur on plants may negatively impact some experiments, but so will a lot of other sprays ( residual fungicides and embryo work in some species is anecdotally one of these ). For TC parent explants everything is washed off prior to culture anyhow so that's not an issue here

 

Look, nothing beats good planning, cleanliness and getting onto things quickly before pathogens go exponential ( which happens over about 36 hrs under optimal conditions for the pathogen )

 

It sounds too simple to be true and is often ignored. I did TAFE chemcert recertifications a number of times and they did emphasise this heavily as a preferred solution to pest management and they were spot on. Once I started Integrated Pest Management strategies my spraying times went to about 20% of previous

 

A crowded plant space with a dirty floor, a clogged drain, poor airflow and overly nutritious propagation mix for your species is a bug buffet, and much of your effort will need to be redirected into sorting out pest problems.

 

Also: Trichoderma. I know I rave about that shit, but the plant immune response is ( empirically ) worth it for me. At least I know which pathogen I'm fighting off at sterilisation time too.

 

Double sided yellow sticky tape over anything which touches the floors or leads onto the benches. Like this:

 

https://bugsforbugs.com.au/product/sticky-traps/

 

The yellow attracts some bugs, and the sticky prevents them climbing. Easy to manually inspect, if you see a bunch of bugs adhering to the trap, you have an entry point for them. Work out where it is and close the loophole. Inspect the plants for signs of infestation ( if the tape gets overloaded it will lose it's stickiness and become a ladder for more bugs )

 

Keep your plants from touching the walls or floors when using these, and wrap tape around any power leads which could let bugs walk onto your babies ( easy to miss if you are running heat mats )

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"A man needs a maid..."

 

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Tangle foot tree is paintable sticky stuff...

that I paint on the blue removable tape to catch bugs .

but I did not do that in the greenhouse.....

good suggestion, thanks !

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1 hour ago, shonman said:

"A man needs a maid..."

 

"Pamela, release my nematodes into the growery while you water my Diplopterys" :3

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