Quote:
Originally Posted by harveyc
Joe, I noticed last week that those citrus you grafted for me last year had scale on them. I've never had scale before so I don't know if they came from your place or some other plant. In a short period of time they really exploded (not literally!) since the plants were still in my greenhouse. I sprayed them with AZ41 two days ago. Today I noticed one of my avocados in the greenhouse was also loaded with scale. To get a good application, I picked up the potted avocado and took it outside. That's when I noticed the ants which obviously had brought the scale to the avocado. I sprayed it well and went back to check an hour later and noticed that all of the ants were dead in their tracks! Pretty hard to tell if the scale are alive or dead at this point.
Now, it so happens, that I've recently had my annual return of ants come into my house near my kitchen sink. They do this every time of year and I think they must live in the wall of my old house or maybe down in the soil below. Anyways, I was wondering if there are any concerns I should have in using this around a kitchen countertop.
Thanks,
Harvey
|
It takes a long while to get rid of the scales because someimes the ants hide them in parts of the plant inaccessible by the spray, or import them from various places. My experience with citruses is that it takes a year before I can manage them, they are still being brought by the ants from my neighbor's plants. The regular spraying of AZ41 makes the effects of scales negligible. But as soon as your plants have absorbed enough phytohormones and nutrients, it would become unpalatable to the scales, and you would see minimum problems with them. I now have sooty-free and blemish-free citrus fruits as the population of the scales, aphids, thrips, cottony scale and mealy bugs have been brought down very low. No more sugary drips nor spider like gum drips. All citrus leaves are shiny and clean, and most of all the fruits too!
You can use AZ41 to spray directly on marching ants inside your house, in the pantry, in the cupboard, in the countertops without fear of toxic effects. The only problem is that AZ41 kills only on direct contact. As soon as the area is dry enough, the other ants will come back, and there are millions of them!
But on plants, the aphids and bugs that the ant have been farming will no longer benefit them because the bugs will find your plants unpalatable from the regular spraying of AZ41. Too bad our countertops and surfaces inside our house don't have systemic effects like the plants have, otherwise we would have longer lasting effects inside our kitchen too. But that is another problem to solve, the AZ41 is not meant for long term effects as ant control inside the house, only on plants.