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Nicotine pesticide information

93rdCanadian

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Im not dead set on doing this but I do want to know my options. I cant get Spinosad either. Unfortunately I also dont have the space to do any breeding work to find something reliable in my locale. I was hoping there would be more information out there but it seems enough people have poisoned themselves in the past that its not shared in general. I dont want to poison myself for sure, whats the point if growing your own food if it kills you too?
 

peterd

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You won’t need the space you think for landrace gardening. The initial breeding work creating genetically diverse and promiscuous landraces has been done by a lot of farmers. You only need to buy the landrace seeds and grow them out and start saving only from the plants that interest you. Over a few selections the phenotype you like will become more prevalent. It will be a piece of cake to collect and grow your own seed compared to anything a breeder does today as all the rules about separation and preventing cross-breeding are thrown out with landraces. You want the genetic diversity so you don’t care if you get crosses. For example I am growing Utopian Ultracross Collard, I did not breed the original seed, I am only selecting for what I want from the plants I grow by collecting just their seed and then just eating the rest of the plants. There’s a lot of good eating in landrace gardening. For corn you could look at Astronomy Domine etc. landraces are usually farmed with zero pesticides and zero fertilizer and only an inch of water per week. Those plants genetics needing those inputs to grow naturally select out of the future seed stock. For this to work you need heaps of genetic diversity to select from so starting with anything from a seed packet or bag from a store won’t get you there. Just get starting seed from landrace farmers or websites that sell landrace seeds.
 

93rdCanadian

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I am familiar with some parts of plant breeding and landraces. I havent started saving seed yet but may do so in the future, at that point I would definitely look deeper. For the fruit trees however their lifecycle even when grafting would be more work than I can pull off in my current space, maybe in the future if my ambitions are still high.

This year I am trying more F1 hybrids for a change of pace, Ive only ever grown heirloom veggies so far. If they do well I may keep growing them, if they do as well as the heirlooms I see no reason to not start saving seeds instead.
 

93rdCanadian

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Thank you for the info peterd, Im going to give the Experimental Farm Network a peek.

I did find some additional information on the environmental half life of nictotine.


3 days in water, 0.5 a day in soil.

For reference a quick search of the neonicotinoids says the half life in soil can exceed 1000 days.

The environmental impact of nicotine appears to be significantly lower than the synthetic neonicotinoids.
 

deluxestogie

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I regularly use imidacloprid in my tobacco transplant water
That is to say, the neonicotinoid kills insects on my tobacco plant that its own, endogenously produced nicotine does not deter. That imidacloprid is not languishing in the soil, waiting to be flushed away. It is absorbed selectively by the plants. As with applying that potentially hazardous compound, dihydrogen-oxide to your garden soil (i.e. watering it), the timing and the total dose is important for safety and effectiveness.

Bob
 

93rdCanadian

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That is to say, the neonicotinoid kills insects on my tobacco plant that its own, endogenously produced nicotine does not deter. That imidacloprid is not languishing in the soil, waiting to be flushed away. It is absorbed selectively by the plants. As with applying that potentially hazardous compound, dihydrogen-oxide to your garden soil (i.e. watering it), the timing and the total dose is important for safety and effectiveness.

Bob
I couldnt agree more that dose makes the poison. I do believe for my purposes though the nictoine concentration would be higher than what is found in the leaf on its own, just guessing here however.

Re imidacloprid, I do think it is sitting in your soil until its either washed away or absorbed by the plants. Ive read the half life in soil can vary from 27 (in sun light) to 229 days (below the surface). My guess is that the research on dosages has hopefully aimed for less is more and it gets absorbed by the plants instead of washing away. In the case that its not all absorbed by the plant I would expect the chemical to still be there, albeit in low concentrations, even a year later, where as nicotine would have degraded to 0.001% of the original application within 30 days (in water) or 5 days (in soil).

Nicotine, neonicotinoids, any chemical really should only be applied when well informed thus this thread and my research paper searches. I dont recommend anyone try this.
 
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