Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES AND ADDICTS - JULY 2014, 1 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone; well at least Hi Ian. Just as well you dropped in or I would be talking to myself again.

It sounds like you still have a bit of on-going work with your brom's to keep you busy while you wait for someone to buy your house.

Thanks for passing on the info about Defender Max Guard; I've just looked it up on the Yates site as well as reading about the active ingredient Acetamiprid on the Wikipedia site.

It seems it is a neonicotinoid which is a class of neuro-active insecticide chemically similar to nicotine and which shows reduced toxicity compared to previously used organophosphate and carbamate insecticides, and I would like to add that any insecticide with lower toxicity has to be an improvement on what's currently available.

It seems like Imidacloprid which is the active ingredient in Confidor, got all neonicotinoids a bad reputation as it was suspected of wiping out large populations of Honey Bees in Europe

The EPA considers Acetamiprid "only moderately toxic" to bees; however, some media sources and the recent documentary "Vanishing of the Bees" have blamed neonicotinoids like Acetamiprid for colony collapse disorder.

I guess the thing to remember is that backyard brom growers won't be spraying this around over vast areas like commercial growers do, so the the effects on Honey Bees would be minute if any; but at this stage it seems that Defender Max Guard appears to be a safer product than Confidor which is the insecticide of choice at present, so thanks Ian for sharing that bit of info with us and I guess time will tell just how effective it is against scale and other insects that bother bromeliads.

The other thing I find refreshing is your mention of attending a brom meeting at Bluewater where the membership contained a lot of younger members. That seems to be the opposite to what we have down here as a lot our members are retirees, so lets hope a new trend is starting where new, young blood is being drawn toward brom growing.

I'll finish today with just a couple of Aechmea NOIDS which flowered for the first time this year. I say NOIDS as the name tag did have a name but it was preceded and proceeded by many ?????? So if anyone can help with an ID I'd be pleased to hear it.

Also just out of curiosity I'm posting a picture of a seedling I bred from a cross of Neo.'Gold Fever' x Self. The object of this cross was to get some nice spotted types (which I did) except this one obviously didn't listen to what the object of the cross was as there's not a single spot to be seen. You never know what's going to happen for sure with hybridising.

All the best, Nev.