I try to be as organic as possible, but I do keep some malathion on hand.
Call it what you like, I am prepared.
i was not impressed with malathion, stuff stinks too. i got better results with permethrin... against caterpillars anyway.
Well I personally have children who eat my Chilli's who have yet still to develop in adults and who may want to have children when they are older. Anything that can potentially effect development and reproductive health in them I try to avoid especially something that is systematic within the plant for that long.
It also has been shown to cause tremors and is not something that sounds appealing to me considering I know 3 people who had (while alive)or have Parkinson's disease.
Bees are highly susceptible to it as are aquatic animals and birds.
Short term studies show its safe in certain doses to humans but not so safe environmentally... is it worth the risk .... not to me personally but you go for it. That's why I stick with organics.
lol the tremors you mentioned are at a rate of like 2mg/kg per day in in rats for multiple years.
i wont go into the math, but thats going to be like 10,000 bucks worth of abamectin .15 if you bought quart bottles for 2 years.
its actual acute toxicity in rats is like a gram per kg... you would have to drink like half a gallon of .15ec Abamectin in order to achieve this...
and yea bees will get absolutly destroyed by abamectin, you aare not supposed to spray this stuff during the day, you do it at dusk because 1, it is decomposed by sunlight, and 2 its going to kill any beas that show up to mess with the plants.
unfortunatly bees are insects, abamectin acts on receptors that are shared by most insects and mites.
azamax is only a contact miticide. guess where all the mites are lol on the bottom. with abamectin you spray the top of the leaves, it migrates through the leaves into the tissue. the mites on the bottom will die. this is the reason its so effective.
its all but impossible to wipe mites out with azamax, unless you manage to spray the bottoms of every single leaf.
you are wrong about birds, i just checked and birds are apparently uneffected. and in order to kill fish with the stuff, you have to be wildly irresponsible spraying in wind in very large amounts. again this goes back to just reading the lable, always follow the lable when applying.
i spray at night with 1ml/gallon of ape, virtually none of it is wasted as it sticks excellently with the surfactant.
- Effects on birds: Abamectin is practically nontoxic to birds [142]. The LD50 for abamectin in bobwhite quail is >2000 mg/kg. The dietary LC50 is 3102 ppm in bobwhite quail [145]. There were no adverse effects on reproduction when mallard ducks were fed dietary doses of 3, 6, or 12 ppm for 18 weeks [145].
- Effects on aquatic organisms: Abamectin is highly toxic to fish and extremely toxic to aquatic invertebrates [142]. Its LC50 (96-hour) is 0.003 mg/L in rainbow trout, 0.0096 mg/L in bluegill sunfish, 0.015 mg/L in sheepshead minnows, 0.024 mg/L in channel catfish, and 0.042 mg/L in carp. Its 48-hour LC50 in Daphnia magna, a small freshwater crustacean, is 0.003 mg/L. The 96-hour LC50 for abamectin is 0.0016 mg/L in pink shrimp, 430 mg/L in eastern oysters, and 153 mg/L in blue crab [145]. While highly toxic to aquatic organisms, actual concentrations of abamectin in surface waters adjacent to treated areas are expected to be low. Abamectin did not bioaccumulate in bluegill sunfish exposed to 0.099 ug/L for 28 days in a flow-through tank. The levels in fish were from 52 to 69 times the ambient water concentration, indicating that abamectin does not accumulate or persist in fish [145].
- Effects on other organisms: Abamectin is highly toxic to bees, with a 24-hour contact LC50 of 0.002 ug/bee and an oral LD50 of 0.009 ug/bee [145].
- Breakdown in soil and groundwater: Abamectin is rapidly degraded in soil. At the soil surface, it is subject to rapid photodegradation, with half-lives of 8 hours to 1 day reported [142,145]. When applied to the soil surface and not shaded, its soil half-life is about 1 week. Under dark, aerobic conditions, the soil half-life was 2 weeks to 2 months [142]. Loss of abamectin from soils is thought to be due to microbial degradation. The rate of degradation was significantly decreased under anaerobic conditions [145]. Because abamectin is nearly insoluble in water and has a strong tendency to bind to soil particles, it is immobile in soil and unlikely to leach or contaminate groundwater [145]. Compounds produced by the degradation of abamectin are also immobile and unlikely to contaminate groundwater [145].
- Breakdown in water: Abamectin is rapidly degraded in water. After initial distribution, its half-life in artificial pond water was 4 days. Its half-life in pond sediment was 2 to 4 weeks [145]. It undergoes rapid photodegradation, with a half-life of 12 hours in water [142]. When tested at pH levels common to surface and groundwater (pH 5, 7, and 9), abamectin did not hydrolyze [145].
- Breakdown in vegetation: Plants do not absorb abamectin from the soil [145]. Abamectin is subject to rapid degradation when present as a thin film, as on treated leaf surfaces. Under laboratory conditions and in the presence of light, its half-life as a thin film was 4 to 6 hours [145].
anwyay, w/e i feel like ive had this converstation with 100 different people lol. to me its insanity to bother worrying about such inconsequential risks, then hop in my big stupid car and go 80 down hwy 59. drink a bunch of coffe and breath houston pollution.
and its not as if neem isnt without risks, it may be almost entirely acutely non toxic to mammles, but there are cases of reproductive harm in pregnant women etc.