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You may have sprayed garlic juice, tobacco juice, combonations thereof on your tomatoes to stave off aphids and the like...you may have sprayed any number of "organic solutions" on your precious crops. But, there is a naturally occuring compound that will not only protect your plants from unwanted insects, but for livestock as well. It's called Diatomaceous earth (DE, diatomite, diahydro) and it is a clever approach to pests. Yes I know, one plant's pest is some benign bat's snack...however, serious small-scale growers (say, tomatoes, green beans, squash, etc.) pull their hair out to keep insects nibbling on other things.
Diatomaceous earth is one good answer. It's simply a porous, chalky, white sedimentary rock composed of fossilized diatoms-- hard shelled algea. The compound absorbs the waxy outer layer of an insect's body; they die from dehydration.
DE can be used in livestock and humans, but the efficacy is low since there is no shortage of liquid in the digestive tracts of either. So, if you've run out of eco-friendly insecticide ideas, give this one a try. It doesn't smell and your plants won't mutate into super-tobacco.
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9-13-2006 @2:11PM Jean Braatz said... Where can you buy this? How is it applied?
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8-28-2006 @1:44PM R.B. Boyer said... Pretty much every backyard pool pump/filter system uses DE to clean the water. You could probably swing by a pool-equipment store or that particular subarea of your local Walmart.
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8-28-2006 @6:52PM Anon said... You DO NOT want to buy the DE used for backyard pool/pumps. There are two kinds of DE, one is considered food grade, many gardening supply stores have it. It is also used as a preservative in Bisquick and some other powders. The kind used for pool filtering is not safe to eat and is a greater inhalation hazard.
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8-28-2006 @8:46PM spline9 said... Be careful of its uses. I work in the aquarium industry and DE used to be used pretty commonly in filtration equipment. Now its pretty scarse since its been discovered to be a carcinogen.
Here is an MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) on a particular brand of DE if youre interested.
I dont know about food-grade stuff but I'm not comfortable with DE near my food.
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8-29-2006 @3:09PM Anon said... spline9, you're already eating DE if you buy Bisquick and other powder mixes. The FDA approved of the use of food grade DE for human and animal consumption and it is commonly used as a declumping agent and natural pesticide. The carcinogenic effects are from inhalation of the particles and is supposedly only a problem in DE used for filtration because the level of silicates is over 6000 times higher. (not a typo)
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