organic army work control

I just ordered some Dispel from peaceful valley farm supply....
seeing as how I primarily grow ferns, army worms are pretty much the only insect that needs to be regularly controlled.
I'm also hoping that dispel (being BT) will not damage my Adiantum species, which tend to burn when you use anything on them.

Does anyone have experience with this form of BT or with organic army worm controls in general?
anything has to be better than orthene twice a month!!!

drew

Drew,

I think you're referring to Dipel, not Dispel, and Dipel is the most common of all the various BT products.

perhaps if I say a bit about what BT is, you'll feel more comfotable knowing that it won't harm anything.

BT is shorthand for Bacillus thuringiensis, which is a genus and species of a bacterium. There are many different strains of this bacterium and different ones make different proteins that have action on different pests.

I'll use just the common names and not the actual strain names.

So that if you were interested in killing larval forms of Colorado Potato Beetles you wouldn't use Dipel, you'd use what's
called the San Diego strain.

If you wanted to kill army worms or cabbage loopers or tomato hornworms you'd use Dipel, a different strain.

The preparation itself is composed of the protein crystals made by the specific BT strain and those xstals are not going to hurt any plant life.

With all the BT products t hey kill the target organism b'c when the organism ingests the xstals they puncture holes in the stomach and the bad guy blows up, to coin a phrase. LOL

There are no side effects from use of BT products, that is, no organisms are killed other than the target organisms for the specific strain of BT being used.

So not to worry.

If you have any concerns whatsoever, just don't spray when the sun is out although I've used BT's for years and no it deosn't hurt the foliage of all the veggies I've used it on.

It shouldn't make any difference with ferns, but just to be on the safe side, spray w hen the sun goes down so that there's no possibility of the xstals burning the foliage, if indeed that would even happen, which I doubt.

Carolyn

Gosh, Carolyn... you are a never-ending fount of information! Thanks, even though it was not MY question.

Carolyn- what do they use at the Steiner/biodynamic farm where you keep many of your tomatoes for this sort of thing?

I've used Dipel for years and feel perfectly comfortable with it, Drew. You'll be fine. So will your ferns. Dipel is a powdered from of Bt; Thuricide is the same product only in liquid form. (Those are the Bt "Kurstaki" strain.)

I think it's great 'cus it has no secondary/tertiary effects, too. (In other words, should a bird eat a worm that is contaminated with Bt it will not affect the bird.)

Drew, I also think you can find both these products more locally and save yourself some shipping charges. Even Home Depot and places like that sell it.

Carolyn- what do they use at the Steiner/biodynamic farm where you keep many of your tomatoes for this sort of thing?

The only reason to use BT on tomatoes is for the larval forms of Colorado Potato Beetles, the way I see it. The adults are not affected by it so one has to use 5% Rotenone which is hard to find b'c the most common formulation is 2%.

Two years ago Steve was furious b/c the CPB's were deci mating his potatoes, so I told him about BT and he said OK, so I gave him some of my BT San Diego and he sprayed his potatoes and manually picked off the adults b/c he didn't want to use Rotenone.

Luckily CPB's are drawn more to potatoes than they are tomatoes so he didn't even bother to spray the tomatoes.

The ultimate trap crop for CPB's is eggplant; they are the most susceptible to CPB's of the triad of tomato, potato and eggplant.

Some folks will spray Dipel for tomato hornworms but I think that's a waste of time. For heavens sake, just pick them off, put them on a rock and smash them to death or stomp on them. But always check first to be sure there are no white dots on the backs of the hornworms b/c if there are it means they are host to a parasitic wasp and when the wasp larvae hatch they eat the hor nworm for breakfast, lunch and dinner. RIP.

BT is a wonderful organic product.

Carolyn

Thanks, Carolyn, Had no idea about the white spot. What a nifty self cleaning hornworm that is!!

caroyln, thanks, I knew the majority of what you said, but great info regardless and i'm really happy to hear you've had good results regarding this product....

and yah, dipel, not dispel... dispel is for boytritis control (my bad)

thanks horseshoe, thats what i needed.... i just wanted to know the effectivness.
Unfortunatly we do not have a home depot within 100 miles, so considering the $20 including shipping i just spent will probably last me 3 years or so, it's a safe investment.

I assume I'll be able to combine this with the maxicrop (and various other foliars) that i use weekly with no ill effects.

needless to say, i'm really excited about this, having a 4year old wandering around my farm nowadays has made me even more attentive to what goes where :-)

so once i start using this, with the exception of osmocote i'll be an organic farm :-)

on another completly unrelated note, has anyone used MaxSea fertilizer? I'm very interested in it.... if anyone has a source for it @ wholesale prices I'd be thrilled to hear about it.

sorry if any of this post doesn't make sense, I just had a vasectomy bout 35minutes ago, and am a lil loopy off the valium and whatnot.

thanks!
drew