Horticultural soap

"Horticultural soap" or "insecticidal soap" are one of the best methods to control the whiteflies, aphids, mealybugs, spider mites, etc. in indoor as well as outdoor plants and gardens.

Advantages

Horticultural soaps has following advantages over commercial insecticides.
  • It is environment-friendly.
  • It can be easily prepared in the kitchen.
  • It causes no harm to animals including birds and human.
  • It is effective over wide range of soft-bodies insects.
  • It does not harm to beneficial insects.

Method of preparation

  1. Take one cup of any vegetable (edible) oil.
  2. Add one teaspoon liquid detergent available in the kitchen and mix well.
  3. Take two teaspoon of this mixture and mix in one cup of warm water and mix well.
  4. Fill it into the spraying bottle and use.

Application

  • It is effective againts wide-range of soft-bodies insect.
  • It is recommended to get-ride of skeletonizer insect of guava.
  • It is effective against the sooty molds and other fungi.

Precautions

  • As the recipe is home-made, use on small infected area to check the effeciency.
  • Do not apply in full Sun-shine. This may burn the foliage.
  • Do not use bleach-based soap. This cuases harm to the plants.


Chlorpyrifos

Chlorpyrifos (C9H11Cl3NO3PS) is an organophosphate pesticide, used on plant to protect them from the insects and worms. It was patented by Dow Chemical Company in 1996. The insecticide affects the nervous system of insect by acting on acetylcholinesterase enzyme. It is widely used around the world on cabbage, cotton, corn, apple, orange and bananas. Recommended concentration of chlorpyrifos is 0.03 to 0.12 %. Because of acute toxicity to humans, use of chlorpyrifos is banned in USA and California. Despite of human hazards, chlorpyrifos is being used in agricultural sector in India. Chlorpyrifos is toxic to tomato and causes death of foliage within two days (personal observation).

Bifenthrin

Bifenthrin (C23H22ClF3O2) is an insecticide of pyrethroid family. Pyrethroids are synthetic version of pyrethrin, a compound obtained from Chrysanthemum flower. The chemical is basically used to control the red imported fire ant. It acts on nervous system of the insects. Bifenthrin is used to control variety of insects including ants, aphids, worms, moths, beetles, grasshoppers, mites, midges, spiders, ticks, yellow jackets, maggots, thrips, caterpillars, flies (Pubchem CID = 5281872).
Bifenthrin persists for long period in soil. It is highly toxic to aquatic organisms.

Sources

  • National Center for Biotechnology Information. PubChem Database. Bifenthrin, CID=5281872, https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Bifenthrin (accessed on Apr. 27, 2020)


See also