Sorry to hear about your worm problems, Nanook.

Have you considered applying a bacterial pesticide, such as
Bacillus thuringiensis (sorry if the spelling is off- it's still early in
the morning) to see if it would have any effect? The BT produces toxins
that serve as a larvicide effective on some species of insects, while
having virtually no mammalian toxicity. You should be able to find it as
some sort of "catepillar killer" (look for the bacterial name somewhere on
the box).

Cheers,

-AJHicks
Chandler, AZ

The e-mail address in the header doesn't work. Sorry.

Xref: news7 rec.gardens.orchids:44356

Thanks Aaron

I'll look into the BT stuff.
I soak my moss in Physon and the smallest amount of Lindane, then
rinse and squeeze before ever putting seedling in it. I was not
willing to try pesticides and wait and see if it killed the worms or
the plants or both, while the worms continued to eat em up. I figured
the quickest and surest way was to dump all the trays, wash everybody
and remount them. I lost a very few plants so it was not a dissaster.
Just glad I was not away for any time, because the guy I pay to
babysit them would have freaked out and not known what to do.
goodgrowintoall
NANOOK

On 1 May 2003 11:01:52 -0600, (Aaron Hicks) wrote:

Sorry to hear about your worm problems, Nanook.

Have you considered applying a bacterial pesticide, such as
Bacillus thuringiensis (sorry if the spelling is off- it's still early in
the morning) to see if it would have any effect? The BT produces toxins
that serve as a larvicide effective on some species of insects, while
having virtually no mammalian toxicity. You should be able to find it as
some sort of "catepillar killer" (look for the bacterial name somewhere on
the box).

Cheers,

-AJHicks
Chandler, AZ

The e-mail address in the header doesn't work. Sorry.

You might want to try an easy(?) solution to your problem. I would see
if a solution of insecticidal soap kills them, if it does you could
dip all your mounted and unmounted plants in the solution to kill the
worms. Just a thought, good luck.

On 30 Apr 2003 15:01:02 -0500, nanook wrote:

A little info for to help others.
Some of you may see this coming.
I have many hundreds of seedlings. (I like to grow from flask)
As one large group of seedlings gets growing I start to feed them
small amounts of fertilizer. (The last couple of years I have only
been using distilled bottled water. This year I switched over to a RO
and DI system. Dang btls were gettin to heavy and expensive to lug
around) Any way, I have several hundred seedlings mounted and about
three hundred more still in trays and pans about to be mounted or put
into baskets. Most compot trays are pure moss, but I separate the
roots of each seedling from the next incase of fungus or any other bad
things that might come along, well something did come along. I noticed
leaves on Onc Ampliatiums turning yellow, then some leaves on Den

Good Growin to Ya all

NANOOK