For my home garden...

I want to use Triple Action Neem Oil in an Ortho Dial n Spray to control white fly in
Ficus Trees, Rosemary bushes, and Citrus Trees but don't know how to mix it and what setting to use.

I've had good results with Palmolive Pure/Clear Ultra Dish Soap on the 2 or 3oz setting. Yes, I know dish soap
voids the Ortho warranty. With cooler temps, I'd like to add Neem Oil to the dish soap but need advice on
mixture and dial settings to use. Thanks!

Jonathan
Los Angeles, CA

I wouldn;t advise it myself. A veteran of 30 years of growing...I used to use Neem Oil but stopped using it. I fond it worthless and more harmful than not. And, it CLOGS THE SPRAYER.

Both soaps and oils have their beneficial uses for insect control, but the are opposed to each other if mixed together. Consider how soap cleans oil from your cooking utensils, for example. In your case, I might use one or the other, but not both together.

Leftwood said: Consider how soap cleans oil from your cooking utensils...

And if its cleaning grease from your dishes, what is it doing to the waxy coating on plant leaves?

I try not to use Neem. Its too temperamental. White flies are tough. If its a little infestation, I use lots and lots of sticky traps. For big ones, you might have to resort to a systemic but then you have to decide which is more important: bees and butterflies or the problem plant. Of course, if you use a systemic on something you want to eat, .... your worries will be over.

I would be tempted to use the Neem because it is a systemic and because it won't kill you. Read all the warnings and find a new sprayer. Neem takes a few weeks to work so your best plan is to pick the perfect day/time, spray and be patient. Don't repeat.

I know L.A. never really has a cold season but my plan with using Neem is to use it early, before whiteflies appear - preemptive. It lasts a few months.

Good luck!

For white fly I spray everything with a Dawn/water solution. Let it sit for a few minutes. Then use a strong hose spray and wash off the soap and white fly.. Check in a few daws to see if it needs a repeat.

I have used Neem Oil for controlling pests on my orchids for about 15 years now. I never mix it with anything.
I have both a one gallon and 2 gallon pump sprayer. I fill either one with water first leaving a little bit of room at the top. With the one gallon, I add a teaspoon of Neem Oil and a couple of drops of a mild dish soap. Then I close the top, pump it up and use the 'fog setting' on the brass spray head. The two gallon sprayer gets twice the Neem and twice the dish soap.

When I first started using Neem, I started a base line schedule if you will, three treatments, each one a week to ten days apart. After that, I would spray with Neem once a month. Yes, it is a systemic good for not only controlling insect pests but for controlling fungus and bacterial issues as well. In the beginning three treatments I sprayed as much of each orchid as I could, including the roots. My thinking was that the first spray smothered the adult insects. If eggs were present, and they probably were, they hatch and the second spray got those smothered. The third spray was strictly for good measure. BUT you must cover as much of the plants surfaces as possible. If you spray without achieving good coverage, you are allowing the beasties to survive and breed in those areas that you missed. And man, they breed extremely quickly, exploding in numbers overnight.
Every new plant gets the three spray program. But the veterans of my program only get sprayed once a month. The beauty of this program is that after the Neem oil has built up within the orchids tissues I can miss a spraying here and there without any ill effects.

This treatment program I started works very well. It is a result of talking with a lot of orchid growers in Florida where I lived for 9 years. I NEVER MIX IT WITH ANYTHING ELSE. Why? Because I was advised when I started that in mixing Neem with other chemicals or treatments, you can get precipitants to form and settle out clogging the sprayer or spray nozzle.

I am not surprised with something like an indoor ficus tree, that you cant really ever control insects! With something wit that many branches and leaves, how does one achieve full coverage? Neem does NOT kill by contact or by residual touching. It kills by smothering, choking off the pests air supply.

Neem does NOT kill by contact or by residual touching. It kills by smothering, choking off the pests air supply.

You're describing exactly "kill by contact" when you say "smother". Was this just a bad choice of words?

-
My comment about using soap and neem together being antithetical has to do with how oils and soaps react with each other. Soap cleans an oily dish because of its molecular structure: having one end non-polar and attracting other non-polar molecules (like oils), and the other end polar and attracting polar molecules (like water). Thus, using this law of physics, it would be logical to say that neem would be less effective with soap added.

But there could be more to it than that. As Lucy points out, soap also "eats away" at the plant surface cuticles that protect it from its harsh environment, like from drying out, for instance. It also might provide an easier path for neem penetration into the plants' systems.

Obviously, both scenarios are at play, but which is more prominent, I couldn't say. I will say that any real horticulturist will think it is silly to add soap to a horticultural oil application; however horticultural oil is strictly a contact pesticide, too, where as neem is not.

Thank you all for your wisdom and experience. 😍 I shall not mix the two treatments!

A pump sprayer on the Rosemary and citrus trees is viable but the outdoor ficus is up to 30ft high which is why the "Dial N Spray" hose sprayer was the best option. Tomtom2's idea of mild soap solution then rinse seems like a good compromise method to try first for this newbie.

Smother means exactly that. Smother them by cutting off oxygen to the little beasts. I did not mean 'kill by contact'.

But with my Neem oil program, several types of insects are controlled. That's why I took the time to describe my regime in detail.
I haven't seen scale in years and years. No armored scale and no Boisduval scale.
No aphids.
No whiteflies
Plus, I haven't had mites since 2010 in Florida.
No ants.
Still get occasional mealybug but they are gone rather quickly.

Sigh...... I am so dense. Catpaworchids, couldn't you just tell me how this non-contact smothering works, rather than playing twenty questions? I am not questioning that neem works for you. But you seem to be so vehement in your stance, you must know more. Do tell, please.

No, I am not being vehement or unwieldy in my stance of Pro Neem Oil. I just get tired of hearing people who try it, miss apply it and claim it is no good.
And of course, that is not you. But I am not claiming that Neem is a miracle cure for anything. But when the directions are followed, it works well for me.
It worked well for me early on in Florida so I kept using it. And I still use it.

And I like stubborn better then vehement. 😝😛
In all of my years of growing I would love to be able to say that my collection was so clean, so well grown that I never needed to spray for insects. But that just does not happen.
I have never been comfortable using chemicals around me, or my kids, or my pets. Spraying something where recommendations call for a protective suit, made me want to avoid them at all cost. Neem seemed to give me protection and control.
So for years it has been Neem, alcohol in water and not much else.
I don't know what else to say. It boils down to an individual solution or choice I suppose. But I also look at results. My first 3 years here in Michigan, under lights, were a nightmare with a brand new environment and rampant insect populations. Neem was trotted out again. It helped to beat them beasties back. And three years later, 6 years out, it is better still. My only real issue now is mealybugs that find the center of growths in Slipper orchids. But now, as soon as I find them in there, deep down, I use a squirt or two of Bayer's 3 in 1 and it cleans them up.

I think what Catpaworchids means is Neem isn't a contact poison, it kills by smothering, not by dissolving insect exoskeletons. But dead is dead.

Personally, maybe because of my climate (hot and dry), Neem is a dangerous chemical to use on orchids. I use it on baby veggie plants the night before I plant them out. No insects to kill but by the time the aphids and whiteflies start showing up, the systemic part is in full swing.

I would not use any insecticide as much as Catpaworchids uses Neem on his orchids. Even as non-toxic as Neem is, used in that quantity and for that many years, ... its building up. In your environment and in your body.

But maybe this is why you continue to have insect problems, even though all your growing is done on light shelves indoors:

https://extension.unh.edu/blog....
Neem oil can be used for certain insect and fungal disease issues. It kills insects by suffocation, covering their bodies with oil that blocks their breathing openings. It is most effective against immature insects. Mature adult insects aren't typically killed and may continue to feed and reproduce.

You really shouldn't have that many insect problems in a closed environment after all this time. Either you aren't killing them all or you may have created a miniature version of pesticide induced resurgence.

Thanks for the beginning explanation Lucy. Seems spot on.
But my collection being indoors and the fact that it should be insect free is hard to imagine.
I always figured that in a tight enclosed situation, as drafty as this house could be, insects can repeatedly invade my home. Plus, maybe being built with a crawl space, no basement, has increased my exposure.
I go from 19% humidity for roughly 4 1/2 months, to 55-85% humidity for 7 1/2
Months doesn't help. My light levels are constant naturally but 80% plus of my collection spends 5 months outdoors. That provides an avenue to gain entry.

Yes, My indoor plants stay indoors and my greenhouse plants stay in the greenhouse. Lots less exposure to outside pests. I'm sure my yard has lots of bugs but I don't see them so they don't exist. My biggest problem is a herd of deer and a flock of peacocks - nothing is safe outside, even on my second story balcony.

Oh no! Peacocks? Son of a ……!
How can such a pretty bird be so much of a hassle.

I've heard they taste like pheasant. They sort of look like pheasant.

Not a chicken?
So many people claim things taste like chicken.
While in Florida, people tried to get me to try alligator. "It tastes like chicken!"
I said, "if I want to taste chicken, I'll eat chicken!" No freakin' way that walking bundle of teeth is going to taste like chicken!!!

I think this thread has been completely hyjacked. Sorry @Jonathan007.

I don't use Neem Oil because it has proven detrimental to my plants. It adversely affects he cuticle of the leaf, coats the leaf in an oily mess which, if it gets too much sunlight falling directly on it, can scorch leaves, and ultimately builds up on the leaf and black fungus will actually start growing in the residue. YOu have to constantly agitate the sprayer to keep it 'mixed up', and if you leave it in a sprayer for a couple days, the sprayer clogs and becomes unusable. I also found it really did not control my pest problems. SO I quite using it about 10 years ago.

Ditto