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marknmt

Freezing spinosad

marknmt
9 years ago

Does it hard spinosad if it's frozen? How about once and done? I know heat is not good for them, but don't recall reading anything on freezing temps.

Thanks,

Mark

Comments (6)

  • Scott F Smith
    9 years ago

    I have not heard anything on freezing. My impression is its reasonably stable at room temperature so there is no big reason to freeze. I am currently using the same batch I bought over five years ago and have had sitting at room temperature since then. It has surely degraded some, but I am still getting good results in terms of moth counts so something must be working. Codling moth granulosis virus on the other hand must be frozen because it has very short shelf life otherwise.

    By the way on the topic of spinosad I have been having huge problems with green plum aphids and just yesterday I decided to spray a combo of spinosad and oil on them to see if that would be better than oil alone. I have heard that spinosad can have some action on aphids, we will see.

    Scott

  • johnnysapples
    9 years ago

    Will pesticide on the trees kill the spinosad. I also wonder about the sprayer too. Even after rinsing the sprayer a couple times it still smells like pesticide, wont that kill it? Wouldn't mixing it with oil smother it? The label doesn't say anything about this. I have been waiting to spray it.

  • windfall_rob
    9 years ago

    At least a few freeze thaw cycles are a non-issue.
    I sprayed the red currants a few evening a ago for currant sawfly, using a 2 year ols bottle that lived in the unheated shop overwinter. Wiped the sawfly larva right out.
    I get a couple generations a seaon on these guys, and they will strip the plants bare in a few days if you let them get going. Only red currants and gooseberry, never touch the blacks.

  • marknmt
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks! I had hoped this might be the case. Now I'm wondering about triazicide (once & done)..

    Johnnysapples, the pesticide won't kill anything but bugs, and there surely isn't enough residue to interact significantly with the new chemical. What you are smelling is mostly the solvents and carriers necessary to deliver the pesticide.

    But as long as we're on the subject I do think I have read cautions about using a sprayer with residual herbicide for anything else, so maybe I'm wrong about the pesticide. I do, however, use the same sprayer for both spinosad and triazicide, and don't think that either has any affect on the other.

  • johnnysapples
    9 years ago

    I was just thinking since spinosad was a living like yeast or some kind of ferment it might get killed by other sprays.

  • marknmt
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I think it is produced by a fermentative process, but I don't think that it is "alive". A parallel might be alcohol, which is produced by the yeasty fermentation of carbohydrates.