Neem oil

Anyone using Neem oil and hows it working?

I have used Neem Oil for fifty years. I find it great for nearly all my needs. Just be sure you read and follow the instructions as is true with any application to growing plants. On r occasion when milldew season is upon us I add baking soda to inhance the fungicidal action. Baking Soda at the rate of two level tablespoons per gallon of spray will not cause any problem with material mixing or spraying.

Thanks Doc,shoud be here soon will give it a try.

In my greenhouse I use neem and yellow stick tape early in the season. then I switch over to ladybugs once there is enough foliage. No problems here.

I had a problem with redberry mites on my thornless blackberries. The only options I could find were sulphur or horticultural oil. I didn't like the side effects I could have gotten from sulphur so tried the Neem (this is the first time I've ever used it). It worked great. Last year I lost about 1/3 of my blackberry crop to the mites. I've sprayed them twice this year with Neem and have only lost a handful of berries so far. I plan to spray again in a few days since I still have a lot of red berries on my canes. It has also taken care of the black spot on my rose bushes. I plan to try it on other plants as needed.

I forgot to mention to keep neem off your flowers. Try to spray so it has dried before intense sun hits.

Azadirachtin, the natural insecticide in neem, was synthesized for the first time last year. There are patents on various extracts of the natural product now and there will undoubtedly be a patent on what is a very complicated process but perhaps it will mean some price drop as the natural has to compete with the synthetic.

I've been using it on spider mites in my greenhouse. Other than blasting them off with water, this has given me the best results so far.
What happens if it gets on flowers? I've been spraying it on some of my tomato starts as a preventative.

Kind of a "PS" here - it works great as a bug repellant on people and animals. After learning of this from my Pet Nutritionist, I mixed up a mild batch and it's worked wonders with the pupsters!

If synthetic neem oil fixes anything without destroying something else it will be the first true creation of science that is biodegrading in an absolutely nondestructive practice.
Sounds to me like more baloney and salts going downstream to defoul whatever where ever it stops. Normally that would be in the oceans where whole areas are now biologically dead from chemistry foul run off allmost all of which science created or our government agencies mismanaged or both.

Synthetic neem oil.....good grief. Where is Rachel when we need her? My ever unanswered question remains the same. When will science get off the synthetic trail and observe their Biologist brethern? We really do not need any more poison craft.

But, Doc... think about supply and demand. What will we do once all the Neem trees are chopped down for the REAL stuff and the demand goes up?

We already have numerous horticultural oils. They and neem do most of their work smothering the enemy. Do we need another unknown unproven factor? So I wonder if we could plant more neem trees. Would not that be a brilliant idea.

Give me a break! :))

The total synthesis of quinine, chlorophyll, taxol, vitamin B12 and other organic compounds have been of great benefit with little or no downside I'm aware of. . Only so many Pacific Yew trees around from which to get Paclitaxel . Same, to a lesser degree, with Azadirachta indica. Steve Ley's synthesis of azadirachtin--an extremely complex molecular structure--was a ten year effort. Seems to me to be a plus that we might soon have a synthetic organic insecticide on the market as effective and which breaks down into the same compounds as the natural compound in neem oil.

See "Bioneem for Veggies?" in this forum. Interesting info towards the end of 3 kinds of Neem.

Many people are remaining very alert to the claims of those who create Bio this and Bio that. There certainly is no concenses of opinion and likely not near enough facts from studies to prove or disprove anything much as of this hour.

In the future I shall not pop off my opinons. I do however have at least some of the fears and concerns that are generated by highly intellegent organic watchdogs. I see no way that my presence or concern would cause any effective investigation into such developments that seem to be a dime a dozen all with claims that seem to sound like they are better than Mother nature. I will sure try to remain alert with both eyes open. I suspect the biology of the earth will consume me before the proof is in the many puddings being generated, produced and marketed today.