My sinister new anti-scale spray

[Halcyon Daze]

I sprayed my cacti today with lethal concoction of 4 pesticides in 1, and I'm waiting fingers-crossed for the results.

Scale has been setting in for a while and wanting to avoid synthetic oils such as white oil or petroleum oil I decided to use a mix of four substances to increase effectiveness and reduce the chance of resistance to any one compound.

I used the following ingredients:

Confidore granules (nicotine) made up to double strength ie 1 sachet in 2.5 Litres of water instead of 5L.

Pyrethrum oil at 1.5 times strength. ie 30mL instead of 20mL per litre of water. (The strength of the undiluted concentrate was 4g/L pyrethrins & 16g/L Piperonyl Butoxide)

12 birds eye chillies per litre of final-spray-solution, crushed into paste and soaked twice in water.

10 medium sized garlic cloves per litre of final-spray-solution,( crushed into paste and soaked twice in fresh water).

I also added 2 drops per litre of household dishwashing detergent.

It was applied liberally via hand held squirty-bottle with a light re-misting 5 minutes later (to hopefully boost concentration and effectiveness).

The fine airborne mist had quite some bite on the back of my throat thanks to the chillies and I saw instant results on a couple of unfortunate little spiders.

I call it the 'Halcyon Daze Blitzkrieg Mix'

I'm sure the scale will drop dead on the spot, I'm just hoping that my cacti don't go down with them. I sprayed half my collection.

So what do you reckon? Good? BAD? Any predictions of what may happen to my beloved cacti?

I'll probably go back to using neem oil again once the worst of it is over.

Anyway I'll keep you updated on the progress.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Halcyon Daze

[Evil Genius]

lol, no idea if this was good or bad. Another pesticide you could add is Imidacloprid. Or maybe hydrogen peroxid and alcohol but not really sure how that would affect the whole mix. Really interested to hear some updates.

[etherealdrifter]

dunno?

i quite enjoy getting on it

then spending a few hours buzzing picking off scales

[whitewind]

Confidor is Imidacloprid and it is implicated in the serious numbers of honeybee colony declines all around the world.

http://www.bellis.in...=_CONFIDOR.html

http://www.guardian....ine?INTCMP=SRCH

Bees will visit cactus flowers, even though they seem unable to pollinate (in my experience, anyway).

EDIT: millions of honeybees isn't actually that many in the grand scheme of things ;)

Edited May 29, 2012 by whitewind

[woof woof woof]

ahhhhh! Good 'ol chemical warfare! Interested in the results.

[Halcyon Daze]

Thanks for your interest, I wanted go public with it before my results come back, too maintain the integrity of the experiment.

[gilligan]

Very interested to hear the results... Nuke them mofos!

[PhoenixSon]

pyrethrum and white oil does the trick...for me

[Halcyon Daze]

How'd you go with the white oil? Isn't that a synthetic oil? I thought that would have ruined your cacti.

[PhoenixSon]

isnt white oil just oil+detergent+some water...

i spray late afternoon then hose off after a couple of hours..

[PhoenixSon]

+ an old toothbrush and your scale should be gone.

Edited May 30, 2012 by spacemonk

[Halcyon Daze]

I was under the impression that synthetic oils are too risky to use while natural oils are generally fine (depending on the concentration). Did you make your own 'white oil' because there is also a product called white oil. If you did make your own then what kind of oil did you actually use? Cheers!

I'll also go the toothbrush after they're dead. It's the little buggers that the toothbrush won't reach that I'm worried about. Maybe it's time for me break out the dental floss

Edited May 30, 2012 by Halcyon Daze

[Halcyon Daze]

UPDATE!!

I recently visited these particular cacti so I got to see the results.

Basically it is all good news with all the scale dead and no signs of re-infestation

I did two applications. The first was as above and it seemed to kill around 90% of the scale but ther was some light rain later that day so a week or so later I re-sprayed them.

This was the mix I used for the second spray:

1 part double strength confidore

1 part double strength pyrethrum oil

the seeds of 4 bird's-eye chillies (crushed)

made into half a litre of spray,

This time I used no detergent. ( it was much better without the detergent IMO)

I sprayed once and then followed that with a very light re-misting a few minutes later ( light enough to avoid any runoff).

Overall the second spray seemed to work better than the first, with all the remaining scale killed.

3 months later and there was no sign of re-infestation but it's probably only a matter of time.

Also no damage to the cacti whatsoever. I'll probably try neem next time I visit those cacti, just as a precaution.

My thoughts are that the pyrethrum oil made a good carrier oil for the confidore and chilli juice. And the combination of all three poisons (at high strength) was enough to Blitz the muthaf**kers.

Very happy now...

[ThunderIdeal]

? i don't see what is synthetic about petroleum, but it has been known to burn foliage in some circumstances.

seems like a good idea anyway, using a turbocharged bug spray, as long as you aren't worried about off-target kills, for instance, beneficials on nearby plants.