Pacifism in Pest Control
(Page 5 of 7)
If you are having a contest with ear worms in your sweet
corn, here's another use of oil that may help you. When the
s weet corn has begun to tassle take an eye dropper or
small oil can and squirt several drops of mineral oil into
the end of each ear. Be sure to get all of the tassle good
and damp. The principle behind this method can be logically
explained—but one wag has it that the ear worm
ingests so much oil before getting to the corn . . . that
diarrhea makes him too weak to eat it.
RELATED CONTENT
EVASION AND DECEPTION
If you are in an area where the corn borer is aggravating,
you can survive his onslaught by planting two or three
weeks later in the season than normal. This will leave you
with a clear field for the real thing. It's a principle
which can be used to deal with any pest which—for the
most part—arrives at just one time in the season to
do it's damage. Or, alternatively, you can plant a small
'dummy' crop to be destroyed when infested . . . bugs and
all.
INTOXICANTS
The easiest way to stay ahead of Gastropods (slugs n'
snails) is to get them drunk! They LOVE beer . . . and you
won't go broke keeping them supplied either. A few saucers
or lid—shalf filled and dug in flush with the
ground—will "pack 'em in" overnight like the only bar
in town. Even empty containers (bottles and cans with
openings flush to the ground) will attract crowds of snails
and slugs . . . as long as the slightest whiff of their
beloved brew lingers on.
If you are a total abstainer, and have no friends who are
sots—you will find that grapefruit hulls, placed
round side up in the evening, will be home and shelter to
families of slugs and snails by morning. Gastropods are
night operators and hide in the daytime under anything
convenient.
MICROBIC AGENTS, INSECT PREDATORS AND PARASITES
In our struggle to discourage certain bugs we must not
forget that many little creatures are our buddies. Lady
bugs clear up scales, insect eggs and larvae, white flies
and spider mites at one sitting. The praying mantis has a
catholic taste for soft-bodied insects such as lice and
flies and is also quite happy to munch grasshopper steaks
and chinch bug hams. Lacewings, wasps, bees, ants and stink
bugs also lend a hand on the harmful pest control detail.
The microbial agents and parasites which flourish in a
"natural controls only" environment are on our side, too.
Microspar molds, to site one example, are tiny carnivorous
plants that kill and consume nemetodes with sticky nobs
called "lethal lollipops".
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