The one Bonide fungicide and insecticide combination spray I had been using changed formulations this year. Instead of captan it changed over to neem oil. Has anyone been using neem oil as an insecticide and fungicide? If so what results have you experienced using neem oil throughout the growing season?
I have tried finding some old bottles of this spray before the switchover formula. I found a couple but I need to either find more older bottles, find another fungicide and insecticide to use, use the new version, or use neem oil as my fungicide and insecticide.
I use another Bonide spray for 4 or 5 spray treatments ( as stated on the label) so the other seasonal spray treatments need to be another product.
I appreciate your input and advice.
Thank you.
some folks on here like wiki
So maybe your answers are on wiki?
Also it states how harmful it is to humans like causing seizures, kidney failure, brain problems…also getting it on your skin can cause dermatitis… not good to feed to your children either.
Good luck.
I used it recently on cucumber and tomato plants to help stave off fungus after prolonged heavy rain and hot temps. It has been working very well, to my surprise.
Honestly it was the only thing I could get my hands on quickly that was listed as safe for vegetables and organic.
I don’t think Neem works as a fungicide or insecticide for the main pests and diseases that will attack your trees. It appear to be labelled for only a few things that might cause damage- white flies, aphids and mites. There are a lot of claims that it works for everything but little hard data.
You might look at this thread which covers Neem oil.
It depends on the target bug. I had issues with haskap cuttings, indoors, developing inch worms that were doing a number on the tender new growth, their eggs were obviously overwintering on the wood itself. A quick dunk of the cuttings in a weak Neem oil solution cures that. I can also spot when sawflies lay their eggs on currants and the like, a quick spray at the right time stops them from hatching.
I can read stuff online all day long. I am asking here because I want read life feedback instead. The info on wiki can be manipulated. Again, I prefer real like experiences from people here instead.
From what I read on the Bonide site I agree with you about worrying about it not being an effective insecticide and fungicide. It does list coding moth as something it is effective against. At least on the label it does.
Thanks for the thread link. I tried looking through some old threads here before posting my request.
That possibility is blown waaaaaay out of proportion.
Interestingly enough, when some ongoing breaking news happen in the world that I want to track I completely stop looking at the news and rely on Wikipedia to keep me up to date; the news would just regurgitate the same info over and over and over in the most alarmist way possible, their main goal in life is to keep me glued to advertisements. Wikipedia simply updates the facts as known. Even during January 6th they managed to just distill what was known at any given time.
I just returned home after a week vacation. Apparently it rained almost every day with temps in high 80s and not much less at night. Usually with this weather my cucumbers and tomatoes are filled with yellowed rotting leaves and poor fruit. Sometimes vines are starting to decline by July and harvest is poor.
I was surprised to return to almost spotless leaves. No noticable insect or borer damage. I admit to cutting off more leaves than usual to improve circulation, but my biggest change was that I combined that with a neem spray product. Picked a large bagful of cukes. Bees were so prevalent I had to use some care reaching into the vines.
I think I mentioned that I would never have chosen that intentionally but shelves were almost bare at my local co-op. I felt I needed to get something on the plants before leaving. I don’t usually like spraying insecticide or fungicide on vegetables and I opted for a more “organic” labeled product.
Tomatoes were likewise clear. Almost no mildew or yellow leaves. Sadly very few ripe tomatoes but plenty of green ones. It seems like it was a pretty cloudy week. Like with cucumbers, spray did not seem to affect bees or pollination whatsoever.
For me the proofs in the pudding. I’m adding it to my summer gardening regimen.
My use on fruit trees has been limited to dormant spray and trunk treatment for borers. I have had significant foliar damage on pears especially in the past so I shy away from it. It’s not particularly easy to prepare and can be expensive. Now I’m wondering if I should reconsider.
Reviving this thread in case someone else has some new information about using Neem oil as a Fungicide and Insecticide.
I have both 70% neem oil products and 100% neem oil products to use.
Hi:
I have been using neem oil (cold pressed only) since 2016 because I wanted to use Michael Phillips’ recipe. Since I did not passed the Quebec’s pesticide regulation exam and not being “commercial” and not being supervised by a agronomist I do not have access to all the “chemical” pharmacopeia that US citizens have access to.
There is a lot of misunderstanding about neem oil. People from India have been using it for millennia. They use it to get rid of lices both up (head) and down (pubis) the body, to brush their teeth, to soap their body and also to smooth their skin, Some people that are not in the know use it internally to get rid rid of intestine parasites which you should never do because it’s very very harmful and even deadly in most all ingested cases, depending on the quantity ingested of course.
Neem oil is a severe endocrine system disruptor in both insects and Humans. Since human consomption is an absolute NO-NO. This is a very “simple” summary about how it works:
Neem oil is sprayed on leaf, insects eat leaf, insect absorb neem, insect is “ill” because of neem absorption, stop eating and die… Adios!
Note: neem oil is not like in the “Raid” TV commercials: it does not work instantly… it takes up to 2 to 3 days to see its effects on insect population.
Using neem oil is a challenge. It get solid as butter if temperature is too low (around 14 Celsius) so you have to heat it a bit with a hot water bath. You have to use dishwashing liquid in order to use it with other ingredients in a tank and have to wash the greasy tank after spraying of course.
As for the presence of neem residue on fruits: I simply wash the fruits, period.
I have been using neem products on my person/body since the year 2000. Very difficult to find them here so when visiting Asia I always bring some. My last soap and toothbrush paste tube… Snif!
Sorry for my bad English…
Marc
Thank you for the video. That video explains all.
Hi;
Looks like you are satisfied with the millennial guy pseudo test? I’m not at all. You don’t have to work in the rocket science field to realize that neem oil does not work instantly. Like I wrote in my text, it’s takes 2/3 days for insects to die from ingesting neem oil. He wants something that acts instantly - like all millennials I guess - ? Fine let him pollute his environment and the whole planet as well. Dishwashing liquids are for just for that: dish washing!
Marc
I’ve had bad luck with neem burning leaves in the past. ive had very good luck with Spectracite immunox as a fungicide and Sevin spray for a insecticide only when there’s severe damage present. i don’t like insecticides but sometimes you have no choice. are you seeing alot of damage from forest tent caterpillars this year? it’s really bad here. entire swaths of mountains bare like winter. I’ve been using captain jacks dead bug juice. its organic with b.t fungus that kills them after only a few bites. it’s saved my orchard from them.
In my case pears do not tolerate Neem oil on leaves at all. Apples are perfectly fine.
A friend of mine had been using the old captan and carbaxyl Bonide spray. But couldn’t find it last year so he used the Captain Jacks neem oil fruit spray. His peaches got wormy and rotted. Needless to say he was very disgusted with that product. He got the Fruit tree Plant Guard for this year and Infuse for late rot sprays.
He wanted some of my Imidan but he was unwilling to use googles and a respirator so I didn’t give him any.
I remember back as a teenager using Ortho’s Home Orchard Spray in the yellow and red box. That stuff worked good.
That is what I found out as well. The Bonide product with Captan is no longer made. It has been replaced with the Captain Jack’s product with Neem oil. I will not use that product since it has Neem oil as it’s main product. I use the Fruit Tree and Plant Guard instead.
I just talked to two different orchardists this last week at two different orchards. Each one stated they would not use neem oil as a main spray ingredient.
So looks like I found my answer. I am not sure others have or will have better luck with the Neem oil. However, I will not try it in my orchard.
I prefer to tank mix - there are lots of times I need a scab spray and not insecticide.
I use captan because it’s very safe and relatively short half life. I need early season myclobutanil for rust, but otherwise captan is a wonder product. The powder also seems very shelf stable.
I wonder why they moved away from it.
I have a few of the Bonide Captan bottles left. Plus I found some plain Captan bottles in an older hardware store. I agree with you mashdar I use it for particular problems when they occur. Just another tool in the toolbox for my trees when necessary. Smells awful but if it works , it works.
I asked Bonide that and all they said was they switched that product line over to that Captain Jack’s spray.