Pest Repellent Recipes

Hello ECHO community!

I am collecting various natural recipes of pest repellents/pesticides to do some research on. I hope to have a finished product with a concise guide on natural pest repellents. Are there any recipes out there that you have found to work really well for you? I would love to include your recipe in my work. If so, please include:

• Ingredients
• Step-by-step instructions
• Application conditions (morning, dry weather, etc.)
• Application method (spray on leaves, pour on ground, etc.)
• Frequency of application
• Target pests
• Benefited crops
• Storage
• Any safety concerns?
• Other

Basically, if you were completely new to the recipe, what would you need to know to confidently make this recipe and what context to use it in. I am specifically looking for natural recipes that are made from on farm ingredients. And not biological remedies.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone uses!

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From the Farming God’s Way Vegetable Guide:

Repellents

Preventative measures are by far the best way to combat pests and diseases, as they stop outbreaks before

they occur. If you have had a history with a particular pest in the field in the past, then you should apply

repellents every 7-14 days to ensure they do not become a problem in the current season.

Plants such as marigolds, petunias, lemongrass, basil, rosemary and mint, amongst many others, are great

for repelling problem pests in the garden. These can be easily incorporated into the design of the garden,

either in rows or at intervals, throughout the garden.

Onion, chilli and garlic sprays are excellent pest repellent options. There are also many essential oil plants

that have aromatic repellent properties including neem, orange, eucalyptus, lemongrass, lavender, sage,

rosemary, thyme and clove oil. Many of the mixtures of repellents double up as control sprays.

Spot Spraying

Most people when they see a pest outbreak, will just go ahead and spray the whole field, which is really not

the correct way to tackle pest incidence. It is preferable to spray affected areas as spot sprays to sort out

problem areas, so that they don’t spread into the rest of the field. Remember that these sprays will most

likely kill and repel both beneficial and non-beneficial organisms, so try to limit the ecological damage you

can cause by limiting the spray coverage to affected areas. Spray infected areas with a fine nozzle spray in

the late afternoon to prevent the plants from getting stressed. Do trial sprays of plants to ensure you have

your mixtures correct and don’t cause unnecessary damage. Here are a few examples of hundreds of

available concoctions:

Soap sprays are good at controlling aphids, scale, thrips and mites. Spray directly onto all infested surfaces

to ensure there is a full coverage on the surface of the insects. 2 teaspoons liquid soap per litre of water.

Soap and Oil sprays are more effective as they combine both the effective agent of soap, with the surface

coating effects of the oil, as well as some of the repellent properties to keep pests away for longer. Aphids,

thrips, mealybugs, scale and whitefly breathe through their skin, so a surface coating of oil suffocates them.

The strong smelling repellent properties from chilli, onion, garlic and other essential oil ingredients are

incredibly effective at causing a hasty retreat of pests from the garden.

Option 1 - 1 teaspoon of liquid soap, 1 teaspoon of vinegar, 100ml canola or soya oil and 1 litre of water.

Option 2 – Crush 6 hot chilli peppers (or 2 tablespoons of chilli powder), 2 bulbs of garlic and an onion to a

pulp, add a teaspoon of liquid soap, 2 teaspoons vegetable oil and a cup of warm water. Let it stand

overnight, then strain out the solid particles and top this mixture up with water to make up a litre.

Neem oil (an extract from the Neem tree seed) has become the most widely utilised organic oil spray

against caterpillars, aphids, mites, mealybugs and whiteflies. A simple spray onto the leaves of plants is

enough to disrupt their feeding and lifecycle, and although not instantaneous it will kill pests. Neem oil

sprays have also been found effective at deterring grasshoppers and also controlling powdery mildew.

Neem oil does not harm beneficial insects. 1 teaspoon liquid soap, 2 teaspoons neem oil and 1 litre of

water.

Milk Spray - Using diluted milk and water solutions have proven as effective against powdery mildew as

commercial fungicides. Milk solutions are also effective against mosaic virus, blights and other fungal

infections on squashes, tomato, cucumber and other crops. Mix 100ml of milk with 900ml of water.

Soap and Baking Soda

Baking soda/Bicarb is very basic (high pH) and creates a hostile environment for fungal diseases like

powdery mildew and early blight on potato, tomato and squashes. 1 teaspoon of liquid soap, 1 teaspoon of

bicarb and 1 litre of water. Make sure you test spray before applying to the whole crop.

Bacillus thuringiensis - A commercial option is the use of Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt. Bt is a bacterium

naturally present in the soil which secretes a toxin which is only harmful to certain insect larvae. Bt is

sprayed as a biological insecticide onto the leaf surfaces of many plants and is an excellent biological

control mechanism against certain insect pest larvae with no known side effects on other organisms. Bt has

to be eaten by the larvae in order to work, and once ingested it attacks the gut lining of the insect causing

death.

Dusting

Woodash is very effective in preventing stalk borer and fall army worm infestations in maize/sweetcorn.

Place a pinch of woodash down the funnel of every sweetcorn plant at knee high for “stalk borer” control.

Post harvest stalk lodging is also very effective at exposing overwintering stalk borer to UV light and

opportunistic feeders like guineafowl and chickens.

For the control of “Fall army worm” in all maize cultivars, apply a pinch of woodash every 2 weeks until the

piping stage. This has been proven very effective even when neighbours have had complete failures with

chemical control.

Diatomaceous earth is a fine chalk like powder made up of fossilised diatoms. When sprinkled on insect

pests it sticks to them drawing the moisture away from their exoskeletons, causing dehydration and even

death. It can also be broadcast around the base of valuable crops stems to act as a barrier to cutworm,

snails and slugs.