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Santa Cruz, CA

After reading many posts in the archieves on Neem Oil I have most of my questions answered but these: 1. At what plant age can you safely spray neem oil? 2. How often do you spray it? We get pm living by the coast as well as cucumber beetles. 3. If I was spraying neem for just cucumber beetles and applying a milk spray for pm, how often would I need to apply neem? Is it only necessary to spray neem when you see the beetles or good to be proactive and spray on a schedule?

6/3/2007 12:28:22 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I've never used Neem on Pumpkins but sold it for 2 years especially to rose growers who found the residual very short.

The following article suugests Neem is onlt 25% effective one day at treatment (DAT).

http://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/zoology/issues/zoo-07-31-2/zoo-31-2-5-0507-13.pdf

I would suggest the regular pest monitoring in a true IPM program is where Neem does it's best insect work.

I applied milk once per week last year & got effective Powdery Mildew control.

6/3/2007 11:02:24 PM

Santa Cruz, CA

Thanks for the article Tremor. I read it and it seems like the the neem works but doesn't last very long and may not be very effective. Now my next question is: If you kill the larve and adults at day one, how many days does it take the larve to hatch? If it is only 25% effective, is it worth using? We used Neem as well as hand picking cucumber beetles last year (and squashing their eggs on the underside of the leaves) and had no problems. I'm sure this year could be different with the possiblity of a larger cuc. population. What do you see as the down sides in just hand picked cucumber beetles and not using neem? Could just one bite from an infected beetle really spread disease? If so, are any of the pesticides or other alternatives 100% effective? Thanks for the help.- Creek

6/4/2007 1:05:26 AM

Minnesota(dw447@fastmail.fm)

Creek,
I tried killing cuke beetles by hand last year. I killed a lot of them, but couldn't keep up with them on my three plants. They were lousy last year here.
This year I'm going to try Garlic Barrier, and see if it keeps them away.

6/5/2007 2:30:33 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

If you are trying to avoid synthetic insecticides then Garlic Barrier is a great tool to include in your program.

6/6/2007 9:41:01 PM