Preventive care - Fungicide + Insecticide

[Ray]

Ignoring the safety aspect, preventive application of pesticides, especially insecticides and miticides, should be avoided, as that’s a sure way to promote the development of resistant strains.

Hobby growers are notorious for lousy treatment regimens - wrong product, improper application, etc. - leading to perennial problems and never eradicating the pest.

• DON’T apply preventive treatments.
• If you see a pest, DO apply a pesticide that is proven effective on the identified pest (no insecticide when treating mites, for example).
• Apply it THOROUGHLY, by wetting every surface and drenching the potting medium, and
• REPEAT that same treatment two additional times at one-week intervals.
  
  if, after a month, you still see the same pest,
  
• Do a complete, new, 3-does treatment using a pesticide with a different Mode of Action (MOA).

[Thriodien]

Originally Posted by Ray

Ignoring the safety aspect, preventive application of pesticides, especially insecticides and miticides, should be avoided, as that’s a sure way to promote the development of resistant strains.

Should it be avoided when acquiring new plants too? I feel that it would be a sane thing to do to take any action of prevention when something new's entering the collection. Even if it's only hydrogen peroxide for general disinfection and a mix of paraffin oil + dish soap as a supposed insecticide (an idea from a MissOrchidGirl video which actually worked very well for me on a heavily infected plant). These are not invasive chemicals but would give me at least a (false?) pretence of protection.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by Thriodien

Should it be avoided when acquiring new plants too? I feel that it would be a sane thing to do to take any action of prevention when something new's entering the collection.

My approach is isolate and observe for a month before moving plants into “genpop”. If you wish to treat them, I think the same, very thorough, 3-application regimen should be followed, no matter what you’re treating with.[/QUOTE]