Hydroponic Systems and Indoor Gardening Guide
Rid Your Garden of Slugsby Marilyn Pokorney Slugs are major pests of horticultural plants throughout the world. They are destructive pests of home gardens, landscapes, nurseries, greenhouses, and field crops. Slugs also pose a health threat to humans, pets and wildlife by serving as intermediate hosts for parasites such as lungworm. Slugs are inactive in cold weather and hibernate in the soil. Heavy mulching and watering, required for productive and beautiful gardens create favorable conditions for slugs. Slugs destroy plants by killing seeds or seedlings, by destroying stems or growing points, or by reducing the leaf area. Slug feeding may also initiate mold growth or rotting. Slugs feed on a variety of living plants chewing holes in leaves, flowers, fruit and young bark. They are also serious pests of ripening fruits, such as strawberries and tomatoes, that are close to the ground. However, they will also feed on foliage and fruit of some trees favoring citrus. Some plants that are seriously damaged include artichokes, asparagus, basil, beans, cabbage, dahlia, delphinium, hosta, lettuce, marigolds, and many more plants too numerous to list here. To determine if damage is caused by a slug or other insect, look for a clear, silvery mucous trail. Under ideal conditions, chemical baits, containing metaldehyde, can be somewhat effective because this aldehyde paralyzes the slugs and they eventually die from dehydration. However, under cool and wet conditions when slugs are most active and troublesome, they can often recover. And these chemicals are poisonous to cats, dogs, birds and curious children. Biological control provides an attractive alternative to traditional control practices. Nematodes possess exceptional potential as biocontrol agents for pest slugs. In Europe a product as been successfully developed from Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita, that is effective against a wide variety of pest slug and snail species and it targets only slugs and snails. It would be a perfect solution for introduction into the US but there are no published records of P.hermaphrodita occurrence in the US. Thus, regulatory issues prohibit it's introduction and marketing in the US. Slugs do play a positive role in the environment. Because slugs are also scavengers eating decaying vegetation, animal feces, and carrion they help in breaking down decomposing materials thus helping to release nutrients back into the soil. Slugs are night feeders so night traps and beer traps are the best ways to catch and trap them. But there are many other methods proven successful. One includes a very common, but not well known, ingredient. For more information: http://www.apluswriting.net/garden/slugs.htm REQUIREMENTS FOR REPRINT:
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Copyright: 2005 Marilyn Pokorney Please leave the resource box intact with an active link, and send a courtesy copy of the publication in which the article appears to:marilynp@nctc.net About The Author Author: Marilyn Pokorney
Freelance writer of science, nature, animals and the environment.
Also loves crafts, gardening, and reading.
Website:http://www.apluswriting.net
marilynp@nctc.net
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This side up: living walls come to Chelsea - The Independent
16 May 2008 at 7:00pm
Vertical gardening is one of the latest trends in gardening, and this year's Chelsea Flower Show, which opens on Tuesday, is set to introduce it to a new audience. Victoria Summerley reports The world tends to divide into two when it comes to ...
The dope on Sydney's leafiest suburb - News.com.au
15 May 2008 at 9:21am
IT'S a high-growth area but in this Sydney suburb it's not the property values that are going through the roof. Two more houses in the Sydney suburb of Blair Athol have been uncovered as secret cannabis farms, taking the total value of drugs seized ...
Drug raids in leafy suburbs - News.com.au
16 May 2008 at 9:49am
Beneath its cosy appearance - where residents live in big brick houses - police this week unearthed a well organised syndicate cultivating commercial quantities of cannabis. See where the raids took place here (pdf document) Officers from Operation ...
Sydney suburb tagged 'leafy' for all the wrong reasons - Australian Broadcast...
16 May 2008 at 6:10pm
On The Kraal Drive in Blair Athol, police drug investigators picked over a spartan house. Dozens of small potted marijuana plants were stacked in the open garage and officers removed elements of a sophisticated indoor cultivation system including ...
North Carolina couple charged with marijuana trafficking - HamptonRoads.com
16 May 2008 at 3:32pm
A couple who authorities say had a marijuana-growing room inside a converted garage now face felony trafficking charges. Osmany and Virlenys Palma made their first appearance in court late this afternoon for charges of trafficking in marijuana ...
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