Has anybody used AZATROL to control the SQUASH VINE BORER on Zucchinis?
It is OMRI listed and considered organic. It contains Azadirachtin.
A store told me that it will work to control the SVB.
But before I buy it ( $65.99 for 1 pt) I'd like to find out if anybody has been succesfull with this product, especially in TX.
This message was edited Sep 7, 2010 9:22 PM
AZATROL to contro SQUASH VINE BORER?
drthor, Azatrol is yet another neem product but without the "neem" name on the label.
Azadirachtin is the ingredient in neem and there are much less expensive products on the market you may want to check out before shelling out over $60.
"A store told me that it will work to control the SVB."
As for it controlling squash vine borers, it's possible. The adults won't be affected by neem/azadirachtin unless they get directly sprayed with it; the larvae, when they hatch tend to go directly into the vines so unless they have to nibble on the sprayed vines they won't come into contact or ingest the azadrachtin either. I understand it (neem oil) is also a great repellent so perhaps that would work to keep the squash vine borer adults at bay, eh?
I've used Neem (Safer's Bio-Neem) and have seen good results though so it might be worth a try. And it is much cheaper than Azatrol.
Shoe
Agree with Shoe; Azadirachtin is one of the ingredients in Neem oil. It currently is a broad based insecticide which can be synthesized making it available in commercial quantities. It is relative safe for mammals showing an LD50 in rats of > 3,540 mg/kg. For comparison Carbaryl (Sevin) is 850 mg/kg (rats). It works by disrupting the targets feeding and growth cycles so essentially it is a growth regulator. As for SVB, I don't find any listing among the myriad of pests targeted. I would doubt its effectiveness as those critters like to eat the plant from inside where pesticides that need to be ingested can't reach them. I think I would also try Neem first. http://www.pbigordon.com/pdfs/Azatrol-SL.pdf
F-dill, have you ever found anything that was a definite SVB zapper? Temporary row covers is all I can think of trying. I don't have them here (have plenty of squash bugs though!) so have never had to go down that ally (yet!).
Just curious.
Shoe
Thanks so much for all your help and fast replies.
I will try Neem Oil since I have some, before I try Azatrol.
I still have 8 plants that have not been attacked. I did cover the trunk while they were growing with a stocking. Also put alluminum foil at the base of the plant with some staples.
So far so good. Plants are 1' tall with some baby zucchini developing.
Off course the SVB found them already. I have been removing eggs on the steams and leaves.
What a life !!! But it is war now !! It is a principle !
I have sprayed with SPINOSAD and BT. But now I will try with Neem Oil.
Thank y'all
If we are talking about vine squash borer, the larva of the sesiid moth, and not squash bugs I have almost 100% success injecting vines with Bt. I got a large bore needle at the seed and feed many years ago and load up a standard Bt brew in a quart container. Then I inject the vines weekly during the borer season which is April/May here. This prevents you from having to slit, remove borers and bury the plant which I find shortens the life of the plant. I also spray the bases of the plant and the ground. Summer squashes need careful attention as do Winter squashes with more hollow vines. Acorns get hit a bit, Delicata a lot, but Butternuts never seem to get bored. I move the injection site up the vine each week as the plant grows for four weeks. You can see the moth hovering about the vines and then after about a month it is gone and you are in the clear. Unless you are growing a large field of hollow stemmed squash this method should work well.
Shoe, I have not found any foolproff solution under my conditions. I can work around them to some extent both early and late plantings. The Bt injections will work, but much too labor intensive for me. Crawling around two three hundred plants with a hypo is above my paygrade. Of course, for winter squash, I use C. moschatas and C. mixta which are pretty much immune to SVB. Sometimes a contact insecticide on the eggs will buy me some time when the SVB arrives early. Of course the pickle worm arrives in July and takes out all summer squash that last that long.
"Crawling around two three hundred plants with a hypo is above my paygrade."
Hah! Love the way you put that! 'Paygrade'.
I hear lots of folks do use the syringe but I'm just basically too lazy. Either that or I can do w/out squash, tending to eat it while I can and once it is gone I am fine w/out it. Normally I am fighting squash bugs though, not borers.
drthor, wishing you good fortune w/your squash. Let us know how things go for you.
Shoe
This must be why a woman's work is never done and speaks to the gardener's version of the glass ceiling. I've been wondering when my raise was coming. I grow about thirty squash plants, mostly pepos which are more susceptible to borers.
You can forget the foil drthor. The critters are very capable of strolling up the vines. As for fighting squash bugs, I've been alternating Spinosad with Neem to no avail. The best treatment seems to be a good pair of gloves to squish and a hose to flush them out. Still can't get ahead of that battle though. This is the worst year ever for them. I read about putting boards down near the plants and then smashing them early in the morning. Don't know what that pays though. :>)
Watch out SVB !!
This is a WAR and I want to win !!
Laurel, glad to hear it's a bad year for squash bugs because my unwelcome visitors showed up quite early in the season and nothing kept them controlled. I didn't use a dustbuster, as some people have suggested, and there were so many huge leaves that I really couldn't keep checking them all for eggs and young bugs. I do think Neem and alcohol helped a lot but then I got overconfident, and the temps were up near 100, so I stopped patrolling the plants and applying it.
For SVBs I have really found that silver mulch makes a difference; I didn't have any trouble with them this year, and last year I had a great crop of both summer and winter squash until the squash bugs showed up closer to fall.
I think radishes also help deterr squash bugs and that's another thing I didn't do this year...
For SVB a yellow bowl of soapy water. They are attracted to the yellow and drown. Pickle worms actually are a bigger pest for me. The only thing I've found that helps at all with them is weekly spraying of Bt or Spinosad and a bug zapper. I hate picking a beautiful squash (they LOVE patty pan squash) and finding 4 or 5 pickle worms inside.
I also plant a trap crop of kuri squash, the bugs love them best of all. I spray with pyrethrins to kill any bugs flying around them, then burn them to kill worms inside.
so far so good. look at the base of one of my zucchini plants. thick and without any SVB so far.
You can see the very bottom of the trunk wraped with a stocking. Wish me luck !
Good luck!
I had some success with sprinkling the base of the stem with Bt. They just crawled over it and bored into the leaf stems, but it bought me some time. But if your stocking works, that would be better than using Bt. Wondering if I could construct some sort of row cover cone around the base of the plant with row cover. I might try that next year. This year, I surrounded the plants with radishes and put some CDs down by them (reflective, but not effective). People kept asking me why I had CDs in my garden. "It's an experiment!" sounded better than "I don't want to mess with aluminum foil."
Those of you who go out there and pick the eggs, kudos! I can hardly tell the difference between the eggs and specks of dirt.
Unfortunatly here in my area, the radishes are finished already when the zucchinis are starting to grow !! I have tried this method too ... also to plant garlic in between the zucchini - nope it didn't work either !!
drthor, when did you plant your zucchinis? I can't grow them for the life of me here, and our temps and humidity are about the same right now. The plants rot here, let alone the fruit.
I have planted my first crop of zucchinis in April. They made a few zucchini before the SVB arrived.
My second crop in july ... but I just pulled away after another attach of SVB !!
It is war .... Next year I may try Azatrol and some people told me to use "silver mulch".
I have had good results using Surround OMRI, fine white clay. It acts as a physical barrier, a fine layer of clay that keeps the SVB from getting in. I have to spray about every week when the plant is growing, so it is still time intensive, but I was able to keep plants going and producing for the whole summer. It does not wash out with rain, but does have to be applied as the plant grows.
HTH,
Yara
I wonder if Diatomaceous earth might help? It might dehydrate the little suckers before they crawl into the squash. I hear it's about the only thing that works on bedbugs (eeek!).
I have tried already Diatomaceous Earth. It doesn't work with the SVB
This message was edited Oct 1, 2010 10:46 AM
Darn. Thanks for letting us know.