Personal experience sharing on rapid pest elimination by saturated spraying with high-concentration pesticide

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Thanks to the author [Super Fan] for theoriginal submissionsharing

Submission date: 2018-04-03

Edited and compiled by: Baike Jun

Location: Weifang City, Shandong Province

Growing a few flowers and plants, keeping a few pots of succulents, watering and fertilizing, pruning and managing them - this beautifies the environment, cultivates the mind, and whiles away spare time; it is an elegant and enjoyable pastime. But when admiring the flowers, if you suddenly discover some disgusting pests greedily gnawing at the bodies of the flowers, that wonderful mood is immediately cast under a thick shadow, and all interest vanishes.

Due to the overuse of pesticides, most pests have developed resistance. Spraying pesticide at low concentration cannot kill the pests, while high concentration causes phytotoxicity. Spraying also produces odors and pollutes the environment, so pest elimination is a thorny problem. Is there any way to solve the above problems? First, let me tell a true story.

Tuberculosis has ravaged humanity for a long history. In the early days there was no effective treatment drug, and it caused enormous harm to human life and health. The well-known Lin Daiyu in Chinese households, in the bloom of youth, passed away - and it was thanks to this disease. Only since the appearance of a series of chemical drugs such as isoniazid did curing this disease become possible.

There was a tuberculosis patient who, perhaps due to the torment of illness, perhaps for other reasons, had thoughts of ending his life. So he swallowed an entire bottle, or even more, of isoniazid tablets at once in an attempt to commit suicide, but after emergency treatment his life was saved. Unexpectedly, since then his tuberculosis actually healed, but due to the toxic effects of the drug he suffered severe liver damage, paying a painful price for it.

This story illustrates two points: the killing effect of antibacterial drugs on pathogens is proportional to the drug dose, and an extremely high dose shortened a course of treatment of about one year into a single cure; excessive drugs caused serious damage to the body.

Is there a way to resolve the above contradiction? There really is. For example, in chemotherapy for leukemia, a small dose cannot completely eliminate cancer cells, while a large dose severely damages the hematopoietic system. What to do? Later, scientists tried using a large dose of drugs to completely destroy the leukemia patient's hematopoietic system, then infused someone else's hematopoietic stem cells so the patient could rebuild the hematopoietic system, thus solving this problem. This is what is called bone marrow transplantation.

Pesticides, like antibacterial drugs and chemotherapy drugs, have effects proportional to concentration. High-concentration pesticides have three characteristics in their action on pests:

1. They can rapidly kill pests; the higher the concentration, the faster the killing speed;

2. They can kill resistant pests; pests that tolerate low-concentration pesticides may not necessarily tolerate high-concentration pesticides;

3. They can broaden the insecticidal spectrum, and are also effective against certain pests outside the spectrum. But can the problem of phytotoxicity be solved?

First, let us discuss how the recommended concentration of pesticides is determined. Formulating a recommended concentration must meet the following conditions:

1. Effective - this is the premise; without it, nothing else matters;

2. Harmless - of course relatively so, causing no serious phytotoxicity to plants;

3. Economical - on the premise of satisfying the first item.

Pesticides target pests, not plants. The active ingredients of pesticides affect the metabolism of pests, poisoning them to death, and this is targeted; the metabolism of plants and animals is completely different. Phytotoxicity mostly comes from the physical irritation and chemical erosion of the pesticide or its solvent, rather than plant poisoning. Moreover, pesticides act relatively quickly on pests and relatively slowly on plants. Therefore, if the pesticide is promptly washed off before it has acted on the plant, phytotoxicity can be avoided.

Pesticides differ from medicines; most are contact-killing. Even systemic pesticides rarely enter plant tissues in a short time, so they are easy to remove.

Based on the above points, the author has summarized a method for rapid pest elimination as follows:

1. High concentration. About 5-10 times the recommended concentration. Because the author grows flowers at home in small quantities, the preparation is approximate and the ratio is not accurate. Those who are able can do research, prepare precisely, conduct grouped comparisons, and obtain reliable data.

2. Saturated spraying. When spraying, the pesticide must completely cover the entire plant surface without leaving any dead corners. If pests are suspected in the root system, the potting soil should be soaked through with the agent, similar to one thorough watering, to completely eliminate the pests.

3. Rinsing with clean water. After three to five minutes the pests are basically killed, or at least half paralyzed, and fall off very easily. At this time, spray and rinse with plenty of clean water. The pesticide and pest corpses are mostly washed away, achieving the purpose of pest removal while leaving very little pesticide residue.

If this method is used in open fields and large-area landscaping, it has the drawbacks of heavy workload, high cost, and serious environmental pollution (heavy, high, serious), and is not suitable. But for small-scale flower sheds, especially for balcony growers, the heavy, high, serious problems can be completely ignored. For balcony growers, the above operations can be completely carried out in the bathroom, and the waste is directly flushed into the drain - simple and convenient, killing two birds with one stone.

The pesticides the author has used include organophosphates (dichlorvos), avermectin, fenpyroximate, pyrethroids, etc.; the targeted pests include red spider mites, whiteflies, aphids, scale insects, etc.; the treated flowers include citrus, money tree, Monstera deliciosa, succulents, and so on.

Precautions:

1. Due to the limited number of times the author has used this method, this method is only rough experience without statistical data and still needs further improvement;

2. If there are uncertain factors, a local test should be done first, such as for new pesticides, new flowers, tender parts of plants, etc.;

3. As to whether it can completely kill insect eggs, the author has no conclusive evidence yet;

4. For flying pests, individuals in the surrounding environment should be eliminated at the same time, otherwise the effect will be poor.

Baike Jun adds a bit more: whether this method is feasible still awaits everyone's discussion and experimentation, and I hope professionals in pesticide-related industries will provide relevant explanations and verification. However, as long as it is pesticide, everyone should be cautious when handling it. Remember to wear masks, gloves, and other relevant protective measures, and carefully read the drug instructions beforehand before carrying out the relevant operations. If you are unsure about the drug concentration ratio, you should first look up relevant information online, conduct a local test, and then spray on a large scale, to avoid causing phytotoxicity.

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This article has beenexclusively authorizedby the author to WeChat public account: Succulent Plants Baike (ID: duoroubaike). The article content does not represent the views or stance of the public account.

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