Organic pesticides: Difference between revisions

Organic pesticides are pesticides made from naturally occurring organic mixtures.

Introduction

Organic pesticides can allow farmers to control pest and diseases in plants without resorting to conventional pesticides. This does not necessarily mean that they are safer to use. Organic presticides can be as damaging to the environment as conventional ones. (For further discussion see http://www.bna.com/webwatch/organicpesticide.htm)

This page focuses on providing recipes to help make organic pesticides from locally available materials. This can be of great benefit to farmers in the developing world, where it is often probitively expensive to buy commercial pesticides

Know your problem!

The key to organic pest control using pesticides is to know exactly what the problem in that is causing problems. If pests or fungii can be indentified this can help choose the best pesticide to use.

Here are some resources that can help you identify the problem:

• Texas Plant disease Handbook- This excellent resource has a list of common crops in Texas and commonly associated pests and diseases. Pictures included
• A guide to Natural Enemies in North America - List of predators with pictures. Useful guide but some latin may be required!!
• Household and Structural Pest Identification - Follow the key to identify common pests.

Organic Pesticide List

Note: Where a plant is named as an potential pesticide, this plant can often be intercropped to have the same pesticidal effect

Organic Pesticide	Pests & Diseases to use against	Notes	Recipe links	Academic articles
Alcohol	Mealy bugs		[1]	-
Animal Urine	Aphids, cattepillars	Has dual use as it acts both a fertiliser and a pesticide	recipes
Ash	Common insects		recipes
Baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate	fungus', powdery mildew, rose black spot, anthracnose, downy mildew, brown patch		[2] [3] [4] [5] [6]	[7]
Black Jack seeds	Aphids, cattepillars		recipes
Cornmeal, Cornmeal solutions	yellow leaves on photinia, brown patch, algae in seedlings, leaf spots on roses		[8]
Dead bug spray	Any insects		[9]	-
Detergent, detergent solutions	Aphids		[10]
Garlic, garlic solutions	Aphids, mosquitoes, onion flies, rabbits (on potatoes), other chewing and sucking insects	Garlic can also be intercropped to repel similar insects	[11] [12] [13] [14] [15]	-
Melia Leaves	Aphids, cattepillars		recipes
Milk, milk solutions	Mildew, blight		[16] recipes	[17] (abstract) [18] - Crop Science (Vol. 18, 1999, pp. 489-92)
Neem Leaves	Aphids, Bull worm, cattepillars	Neem can have multiple functions such as for medicinal use. See Neem article	recipes
Pepper, Hot pepper, Chillis	cats, dogs, insects, bugs, snails and snails (on leaves)	often used in combination with spearmint to improve effectiveness	[19] [20] [21]	-
Soap, soapsuds, soap solutions	Slugs, aphids	Solutions can be sprayed on any plant leaves or used near affected plants	[22] [23]	-
Spearmint	insects, bugs, chewing insects	often used in combination with hot pepper to improve effectiveness	[24] [25]	-
Tobacco, Nicotine, Nicotine Solutions	Caterpillars, aphids, many types of worms, fungus gnats, symphylids, centipedes, root lice, other underground pests	Solutions can be sprayed on any plant leaves or used near affected plants	[26] [27]	-
Tomato leaves	Insect repellent, blight		[28] recipes
'Traditional' appropriate pesticides	Common insects	These include battery acid, cigarette butts in water, soapy water

To be added to list:

• Neem oil
• BT
• Confusion Lures
• Copper Sulfate
• Jojoba Oil

• Citric Acid
• Potassium Bicarbonate
• Sulfur
• Insecticidal Soap
• Paraffinic Oil

• Diatomaceous Earth
• Garlic Oil
• Spinosad
• Pyrethrum
• Kaolin Clay
• Bordeaux mixture
• silicic acid

See also

• Integrated_Pest_Management

External links

• Biological pest control
• Organic pesticides
• Repellant plants
• Pest-regulating plants
• Beneficial weeds
• Companion plants
• Insect traps