Quote:
Originally Posted by ipv6ready
Systematics is a term used for strong chemicals that can either be a pesticide or a fungicide taken in by the roots/leaves of the plant. Thereafter for a given time period the whole plant becomes poisionous to whatever you are getting trying to kill.
Think of contact pesticide as machine gunning your target ie you need to actually touch it to kill it, where as Systemactics are like Nuking it.
PS: not sure you can get a fungicide and pesticide in one package though in Australia it is one or the other.
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Systemic means that it gets into the plants system. Indeed it is usually strong, but not nessecarilly. A systemic is usually taken up by the root system and goes throughout the "veins" of the plant with the water and other nutrients. You have to be extremely careful with systemics with orchids because of this fact. since they go through the entire plant, and usually stay in the plant for a while you need to be careful that you are not using something that will kill the plant.
When I grew houseplants I used systemics all the time for pests. I would also make sure I did it during summer months while the plant was outside so that the smell would be gone by the time I brought them back inside. Another thing I would do on larger plants would be to cover the soil with something to discourage my cats from even thinking of putting its paws in the container because of the poison on the soil.
There may be some spray on systemics that can be directly absorbed into the leaves. But remember that the key with systemics is that it needs to be absorbed into the plants system somehow.
Fellow orchid addict,
Randy