On 18/11/07 09:45, in article ,
"David in Normandy" wrote:

In article , Charlie
Pridham says...
In article ,
says...
In article , Sacha
says...
Capping this, Ray told me the story of a couple who marched into the
nursery
a few years ago in a state of righteous fury - seriously annoyed. They
told
him that having bought some plants from us they'd spent an hour or more
picking out insect eggs from the compost in which the plants were potted.
Ray scooped up a handful of slow-release fertiliser pellets and said "did
they look like this?" Guess the answer.


Showing my ignorance here, but like they say better look a fool for five
minutes than remain a fool for ever! I've sometimes bought plants in
pots with clumps of little "beads" either down the edge of the pot or at
the bottom of the rootball. The Mrs and I can never agree if they are
slow release fertiliser or the eggs of slugs / snails? They are
typically around 1/8" diameter, perhaps slightly larger and usually in
clusters of around 20 or more. Their colour is usually white or creamy
through to brown. If I squash them they burst and are full of a watery
like substance. Are these eggs or fertiliser? Is there a clear way of
telling the difference?

Snail/slug eggs are white or nearly white and are in clumps, slow release
fertilizer is normally coloured (it varies as to which colour) blue or
straw yellow being the most common, and scattered through the compost.
Squashing will not tell you as both will squish


I'd always assumed that if they could be squashed and burst releasing
liquid that they were eggs, but it sounds like that isn't necessarily
the case. I've been removing and discarding some slow release fertiliser
as well as slug/snail eggs then.

It would be so much simpler if the fertiliser was always blue. It sounds
like pale straw or creamy colour beads could be mistaken as either slug
eggs or fertiliser!

So, it seems a fair bet to remove clumps of beads or those which are
white, but to leave those which are darker or more evenly scattered.

We use mainly yellow pellets and they would be hard to mistake for white.
Next time you go to a gc or nursery, either look for some on sale or ask the
nurseryman to show them to you. But as Charlie says, they're scattered
throughout the compost, eggs are in clumps. You just have to imagine the
insect sitting in one spot while it lays its eggs. It's not going to move
about through the soil scattering eggs as it goes. Your query is by no
means unusual BTW. I should say urg receives two or three questions about
this every year.
But the distribution of the pellets should be a helpful clue. When we make
up a compost mix here, it's like making a cake on a giant scale! The bag of
compost is emptied onto a potting bench, a bit to one side. Pellets are
scattered on top and then the whole thing is turned over and over to the
other side and then back again.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'