Are you really doing that?

[Ray]

While that could be taken as a challenge of one’s sanity, what I am getting at is “is what you’re doing to ‘improve’ things or ‘fix’ an ailment really getting you there? We’ve all done something in which the answer is “No”, but we shouldn’t.

A very obvious one is treating ex-flask seedlings with a fungicide or disinfectant. The flask is inherently sterile, and such treatments don’t impart protection going forward, so why bother? You want to help the seedlings survive? Try a probiotic.

Then there's misting leaves to raise the humidity. Humidity is “water in the air”, not wet leaves, which can lead to bacterial or fungal issues.

Day/night temperature variation and “winter rests” are another. Not all plants require them, and some do better if not chilled.

Some more:

• Use an insecticide to treat a mite infestation.
• Treating a bacterial infection with a fungicide.
• Using a disinfectant for an insect or mite problem.
• Topical disinfectant for systemic infections

Another big one is “one and done” treatments to eradicate insects. Most pesticide products don’t work well if applied that way; they need repeated treatments to reach a high probability of efficacy.

I guess the bottom line is that 1) we need to understand what we’re dealing with, 2) evaluate if our actions will truly result in the intended outcome, and 3) stop listening to-, and sharing (unevaluated) “common knowledge”, a.k.a. myths and old wives’ tales.

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[Fairorchids]

Amen. With the first item being a pet peeve of mine.

[Dusty Ol' Man]

Originally Posted by Fairorchids

Amen. With the first item being a pet peeve of mine.

Ok. Now my curiosity is piqued. What do you treat mites with?

[Dimples]

A miticide. Preferably one that lists the type of mite you’ve identified as the culprit.

Edit to add: Use a miticide (arachnicides), or a pesticide that kills by physical means (hort soap, hort oil, alcohol spray, etc.), or other non-chemical management options (as suggested by estacion), but whatever you choose to use please make sure the product lists or is proven effective on the target pest.

[Ray]

I guess Kim was referring to the ex-flask seedlings.

[Dusty Ol' Man]

Originally Posted by Ray

I guess Kim was referring to the ex-flask seedlings.

Yeah.

[estación seca]

Miticides are somewhat pointless unless you have a tightly sealed growing area you never enter. You cannot eliminate them. They are in the environment around us and will come back. Mites have very short generations so they rapidly develop resistance to miticides. If used they should be used in rotation.

They can be controlled by keeping humidity high and/or by wetting frequently all surfaces of all plants plus the growing area.

[YetAnotherOrchidNut]

Originally Posted by Dusty Ol' Man

Ok. Now my curiosity is piqued. What do you treat mites with?

Insecticides are intended for insects. Mites are arachnids. Arachnids are not insects, so you kill them with arachnicides (there is another, more common name for this class of compounds but I cant find the name with a quick search) not insecticides.

Insects have antenna and universally 6 legs, spiders don't have antenna and almost universally as adults have 8 legs. Most insects have three components to their body, spiders pretty much universally have 2. There are many more differences. A spider is more closely related to a crab than it is to an aphid.

Using an insecticide to kill an arachnid is like using a poison intended for reptiles to kill a mammal, it /might/ work, but it probably wont be as effective as something that is designed to target a spider.

Some commercial "insecticides" aren't really insecticides at all and kill via mechanical processes, eg oil products are used to smother the creature being targeted, or hydrogen peroxide can be used chemically damage the critter, and many of these work on both classes of critter to some level or another. But if you want to kill a mite with chemical means then you really want to use something different than you would to kill an insect.

---------- Post added at 07:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:14 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Ray

3) stop listening to-, and sharing (unevaluated) “common knowledge”, a.k.a. myths and old wives’ tales.

Personally I would rephrase that. When faced with folk knowledge and remedies we should show suitable skepticism, but that should be balanced with curiosity and an open mind. Folk knowledge often has foundation and should not be discarded easily without deeper investigation.

A great example is the disease Pellagra, which is caused by Niacin deficiency (Vitamin B3), which was a major health issue in the US south due to the prevalence of high-corn diets. Corn is a plentify source of B3, *IF* it is treated properly.

The native populations of the Americas figured this out centuries ago, and told the European invaders/colonists how to treat the corn so it was more healthy. They didn't listen and so the US South which was highly dependent on corn as a food source had repeated large scale outbreaks of Pellagra over many years, especially among its worker, prisoner and enslaved populations. Poor folk would get sick, and rich folk wouldn't because they had a balanced diet. Nobody really paid much attention to the natives (they were considered "savages" after all), so they never noticed they *didn't* get Pellagra, even though they too were poor and had an impoverished diet.

It was only when a white doctor showed that the "disease" was a consequence of B3 deficiency that people realized that the process the natives had been using for centuries, nixtamalization, (boiling the corn in lime-water and then letting it dry out afterwards) enabled them to convert the locked up niacin in corn into a form that your body can actually absorb. If you are from the US you likely would have tried corn prepared like this at least once, its common name is "grits" or "hominy grits", and the processed corn is also ground and turned into tortillas and things like that. Contrary to popular belief fresh corn on the cob provides almost no niacin, but the same corn processed and turned into a tortilla is a rich source of it.

So don't count out folk knowledge. Remain skeptical but also open minded. There is far more to the world than the knowledge we currently consider to be science, and folk remedies often have foundation that we just don't understand yet. Trust but verify. Use your brain. Keep your eyes open.

[Ray]

@YetAnotherOrchidNut- precisely why I added the “(unevaluated)” qualifier.

Most such information has some basis in fact it’s often simply misunderstood, misinterpreted, or misapplied.

Your pellagra commentary reminded me of a totally unrelated, ridiculous factoid that you all might get a kick out of, so I’ll hijack my own thread.

Courtesy of corporate mergers, I became associated with a chemical business related to organic peroxides. They are used a lot to bleach flour, so folks can have white bread. Unfortunately, bleaching destroys the vitamin content, but that’s OK, we had another business that sold vitamin supplements for dough…

[YetAnotherOrchidNut]

Originally Posted by Ray

You want to help the seedlings survive? Try a probiotic.

I would love to hear more, as I will have some plants to deflask in the next month or two. What kind of probiotic would you use on a plant?