Organic pesticide solution???

[Guest SungmanitutonkaSka]

i was thinking of using Citric acid to protect my cactus seedlings much the same way it is used on bean sprouts.

im trying to start a little sacred organic garden. trying to find alternatives to heavey pesticides, ect

any thoughts Torsten mabey i missed something

[Jack]

Azadol is an organic pesticide, used for treatment of spidermite and other pests.

Comes in concentrate that you mix with water.

[Guest PoppymaN]

Hey,

You can make your own organic garlic or soap sray, and it has proved quite successfull. Another thing you can buy from

You local garden outlet is "Beat A Bug"

organic garlic and chilli spray, it also worked very well for me.

Layterz,

><

[This message has been edited by PoppymaN (edited 05 February 2001).]

[This message has been edited by PoppymaN (edited 05 February 2001).]

[Torsten]

I've never used any sprays on cacti, but I would probably use pyrethrum as this is what i use for any other plant.

[earthalchemist]

*do not* use pyrethrum on trichocereus species ... it suffocates the cactus and causes very unsightly skin damage ... i didn't know this until *after* i sprayed my three biggest trichs

i was told this effect is exclusive to trichs, anyone know?

[Guest Ramon]

Also haven't had any need to spray anything on my Trich's. Recently after a flower fell of the point where it fell went black and started to ooze slightly but this seemed to fix itself after a few days.

Don't however have that great a success rate with seedlings but I figure that in wild most probably don't survive either.

[Torsten]

I killed my very first pachanoi with pyrethrum and then believed that pyrethrum was evil for cacti after watching a 1m specimen disintegrate in a matter of hours. Recently I tried some of our pyrethrum mix, which I make from pyrethrum syrup (and nothing else) and this did no damage. Sorry, I should have warned that the commercial pyrethrum obviously has something in it that forms an oily layer on the cactus and suffocates it.

making your own is a good (cheap) option though.

[dutchie]

You may find that comercial pyreth mixes also contain white oil and or surfactants to aid in even distribution of the contents as it hits the plant. I would say, that either the white oil,or surfactant will cause clogging of the pores. NOTE that aerosols also contain hydrocarbons that may also burn our friends.

[earthalchemist]

Recently I tried some of our pyrethrum mix, which I make from pyrethrum syrup (and nothing else) and this did no damage.

so can you explain how this is made torsten? unless you don't want to give away any secrets

[Torsten]

No secret. We buy pyrethrum syrup and make our own solution. The syrup is just a resin extract of pyrethrum, ie it has been solvent extraced and reduced to a syrup. A 500 ml bottle costs about $150 and makes 500 litres of pyrethrum mix. As this is made fresh it is much more potent than the commercial stuff - actually, at least twice as potent. For delicate plants we make it half strength.

We were selling the syrup for a while, but sold none and took it off the site again.

BTW, the syrup works out to be 30 cents per litre of mix, which costs more than $5 at supermarkets. No wonder pyrethrum is not all that popular.

[Darklight]

Isn't at least *some* of the stuff sold as pyrethrum synthetic anyhow? I've been caught out a couple of times by labelling on those spray bottles.

The mixtures often contain what they describe as synthetic pyrethrinoids and a surfactant to make the pesticide spread better. Yet they are sold labelled as pyrethrum spray. Very misleading, check your labels folks

And to top it off I seem to have a rxn to something in the commercial brands ( prolly surfactant )which makes me very ill for an hour or two bout fifteen minutes after I spray. Torsten's mix didn't have that effect at all.

[alien]

Please people dont use any toxic chem's for your garden. I know it sux, but I think its cool to just share with the bugs n stuff too. I get a lot of seedlings eaten this way, but I would never use pestacides, mainly because they kill frogs. Frogs are natural predators against bugs, if you try encouraging frogs around your gardens im sure the bug problems will lessen

[earthalchemist]

good point alien ...

and reminds me, just a week or two ago a frog has moved into my garden

you can hear frog croaking all night, yet to identify it ... and the pond is just a plastic basin sunk to soil level ... that easy.

[Torsten]

To be called pyrethrum it has to contain some pyrethrum extrtact. However, many commercial sprays are mostly composed of pyrethrins (the dangerous synthetic version). the stuff I use is pure plant extract with a minute quantity of stabiliser added.

I have to use sprays. I don't think many of you would be impressed if I sent out diseased and infested plants. However, there are plenty of frogs here and plenty of insects. I only spray 2 or 3 times per year, mostly for aphids or lerps. I also use a little bit of white oil for scale when it occurs. This year we also had to use Bt to get the caterpillars that took a shine to all our Apocynaceae (tabernaemontana etc). Last years spidermite outbreak was quickly controlled with predatory mites.

All of these are ways of killing bugs without hurting frogs, birds, bees and many beneficial insects. Spiders for example hang around the top of the greenhouse and in the trees above the plants. By the time they come out at night the pyrethrum in inactive. We don't spray flowering plants, so no bees are affected. And pyrethrum is not very dangerous to frogs anyway.