MissJuggs wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 3 May 2004 00:06:50 +0100, "Emrys Davies"
wrote:

Personally, I would not eat those contaminated plants, regardless. Best
to start again.

I'm thinking this as well. Shame.


The active insecticidal ingredient is a synthetic relative of nicotine
trade-named 'Thiacloprid'. It's systemic in action, so you would take
it in if you ate treated plants; I don't know how long it lasts in
plants, or how much they would take up if you just treated the soil. I
have the impression that it's probably fairly safe, but as far as I
know it hasn't been approved for food crops (I could be way out of
date here). Pbi only advertise it for use on ornamentals, so I'd keep
it that way, I'm afraid.

These things have a habit of turning out to be more dangerous than was
at first thought, haven't they?

I haven't tried, because the smell is intolerable, but I wonder if the
old-fashioned boiled-up fag-ends solution used as a soil drench might
settle for vine weevils (nicotine is water-soluble, and a strong
contact poison, even to humans). Any nicotine which the plant might
take up would probably not bother the human system in the quantities
we'd get from herbs used as flavouring, especially after a few weeks.

I once saved a badly-weevilled container-grown yew by shaking off the
potting mix and simply planting it out in the open ground: after a few
months it got going again. An affected pot-plant can sometimes be
saved by pulling it out, shaking gently, pinching any grubs you see,
washing the roots, cutting back the top, and replanting in fresh
compost: I suppose if it's worth it, you could repeat the process
every week for a while, but I've never gone that far.

Mike.