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In the never-ending battle of the bugs I prefer a natural alternative. This is one of my favourites, both indoors and out.
When Hubby came home from work the other day the first words out of his mouth were "what is that gawd-awful smell?"
Just that morning I had discovered the dreaded mealy bug on my prized braided Hibiscus tree. They had to go. Mealy bugs are the bane of the indoor gardener, the sight of just one of those white blobs can cause panic. I had to spray!! It isn't my fault it's winter and it can't be done outside. That is the only drawback to Neem oil. The smell. A combination of well-rotted onions and sulphur. Even though I had sprayed them in the bathroom and left them there behind closed doors, the smell permeated the entire first floor of the house. The critters were slinking around with their noses held high and their eyes all squinty.
But the stuff works.
Azadirachta indica. This native of India and Pakistan has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries. Highly heat and drought tolerant, the Neem tree is often planted along roads and in backyards as a dependable source of shade.
The new shoots and flowers are eaten as a vegetable in India and Neem twigs were one of the first tooth brushes. Almost every part of the Neem tree is used for medicinal purposes in India. It is known as "the village pharmacy", "heal all", "nature's drugstore".
The beauty of Neem is that it doesn't kill the bugs. It alters them so they can no longer breed or feed. It also prevents eggs from hatching. In short, my Mealy bugs will starve to death. So would any other plant sucking insects, such as aphids, cabbage worms and Japanese Beetles. That's right folks, a Japanese Beetle might munch a Neem-covered Lily leaf, but her eggs will not hatch, if she is even capable of laying them in the first place.
It is safe to use around pets and children. It is harmless to any insects that feed on nectar such as butterflies and honey bees. It is also harmless to ladybugs. It will not harm any creatures that feed on the Neem infected bugs.
It is expensive. The oil is produced from the seeds. I paid $18 for 4 ounces. I mix it approx. 1 tsp/quart of warm water with a few drops of plain dish soap. The dish soap helps the oil stick to the leaves. Spray liberally, I mean dripping wet, on the tops and undersides of the leaves. Spray the branches and the suface of the soil. Repeat the treatment every 5-7 days. After 4 applications, no more bugs.
Last summer I used it outside. I had to spray more often than the recommended every 5 to 7 days since I picked the rainiest week of the summer to do it. I also learned the hard way that after spraying, avoid having the plants in full sun for a couple of days or their leaves will burn. I have used it on all of my house plants except for the furry leaved varieties such as African Violets.
The smell in the bathroom was strong for three days. It waned a bit after that, or else I just got used to it. I appreciate the fact that I can use it in the house without fearing for the safety of my critters. I also like the fact that it works. In this age of harsh chemicals and pesticides, it is comforting to know that their are alternatives. We just have to make the choice to use them.
For more information on the benefits, health and otherwise, of the Neem Tree.
Many thanks to Dinu, Gabrielle, and Chamma for their wonderful photo additions to Plant Files.
About Lee Anne Stark
I am an avid gardener who shares my gardens with 2 other equally avid gardeners. I garden for fun and relaxation, never paying attention to the rules!! During the long, cold winter months I occupy my time playing with over a hundred house plants, my six cats and two dogs.
Posted by SW_gardener (from Southern Ontario
(Canada)) on May 13, 2008 at 2:37 PM:
Thanks for this great artical!!! I just read it last night and discovered some mealy bugs on a philodendron a few moments ago. I've actualy never had the things on my plants before(guess I'm lucky)........but I have to say they really grossed me out......those fuzzy white blobs. I scaned the entire plant and only found 3 so I'm figuring they must have came with the plant since I just got it a couple weeks ago. I'll check again later as I don't want an infestation.
Steven
ps: I thought when I bought it that it would be great for one of our plant trades!
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Posted by threegardeners (from North Augusta, ON) on May 13, 2008 at 5:46 PM:
That would be a wonderful plant for one of our trades
If you only have a couple mealies a q-tip dabbed in rubbing alcohol works well too, they shrivel right up which is quite satisfying. If you decide on the Neem make sure you don't have the plant in the sun for a few days after.
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Posted by SW_gardener (from Southern Ontario
(Canada)) on May 13, 2008 at 11:12 PM:
Its growing quite fat so there should be a few cuttings I can send later in the summer!
I think I got most of them, I've only found 4 so far and haven't seen any more but I keep checking. If I find anymore I'll be sure to swab them with the rubbing alcohol!
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Subject: Cheaper Neem Oil Source
Posted by NatureLover1950 (from Vicksburg, MS) on May 7, 2008 at 4:19 PM:
I purchase my Neem oil online--$11.00 for 8 ozs., from:
They shipped the same day and I received it within 2 days.
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Subject: Neem oil is toxic
Posted by CLScott (from Calgary
(Canada)) on April 15, 2008 at 11:29 PM:
Neem oil contains azadirachtin which is toxic. Perhaps they remove it before selling the Neem oil?. Neem oil is also not environmentally friendly because it has to be shipped by pollution device over many miles.
No Neem in my backyard! Ever!
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Subject: Neem prices sore in India
Posted by bjwlmp (from Seattle, WA) on April 15, 2008 at 11:34 AM:
I was interested in using Neem until I read the following article about its human cost in India.
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The neem tree - a case history of biopiracy
By Vandana Shiva
A classic case of biopiracy by transnational corporations is that of the neem tree in India. Vandana Shiva provides the background to this attempt to appropriate an invaluable biological resource of the South.
DURING 1994, Indian farmers staged one mass demonstration after another against the proposed GATT Uruguay Round agreement. In March about 200,000 gathered in Delhi demanding, among other things, that the draft treaty - known colloquailly as 'the Dunkel draft' after chief negotiator, Arthur Dunkel - should be translated into all Indian languages. On 2 October, about half a million converged upon Bangalore to voice their fears about the impending legislation, aware of the threat that GATT poses to their livelihoods, by allowing multinational organisations to enter Third World markets at their expense.
In particular, many of them began to question the Dunkel Draft's call for an international harmonisation of property rights legislation. In their demonstrations, protesters carried twigs or branches of neem, a tree found throughout the drier areas of India.
Several extracts of neem have recently been patented by US companies, and many farmers are incensed at what they regard as intellectual piracy. The village neem tree has become a symbol of Indian indigenous knowledge, and of resistance against companies, which would expropriate this knowledge for their own profit.
A tree for all seasons
Of all the plants that have proved useful to humanity, a few are distinguished by astonishing versatility. The coconut palm is one, bamboo another. In the more arid areas of India, this distinction is held by a hardy, fast-growing evergreen of up to 20 metres in height - Azadirachta indica, commonly known as the neem tree.
The neem's many virtues are to a large degree attributable to its chemical constituents. From its roots to its spreading crown, the tree contains a number of potent compounds, notably a chemical found in its seeds named azadirachtin. It is this astringency that makes it useful in so many fields:
Medicine
Neem is mentioned in many ancient texts and traditional Indian medical authorities place it at the pinnacle of their pharmacopeia. The bark, leaves, flowers, seeds and fruit pulp are used to treat a wide range of diseases and complaints ranging from leprosy and diabetes to ulcers, skin disorders and constipation.
Toiletries
Neem twigs are used by millions of Indians as an antiseptic tooth brush. Its oil is used in the preparation of toothpaste and soap.
Contraception
Neem oil is known to be a potent spermicide and is considered to be 100% effective when applied intra-vaginally before intercourse. Intriguingly, it is also taken internally by ascetics who wish to abate their sexual desire.
Timber
Besides being hard and fast growing, its chemical resistance to termites makes neem a useful construction material.
Fuel
Neem oil is used as lamp oil, while the fruit pulp is useful in the manufacture of methane.
Agriculture
The Upavanavinod, an ancient Sanskrit treatise dealing with forestry and agriculture, cites neem as a cure for ailing soils, plants and livestock. Neem cake, the residue from the seeds after oil extraction, is fed to livestock and poultry, while its leaves increase soil fertility. Most importantly, neem is a potent insecticide, effective against about 200 insects, including locusts, brown plant-hoppers, nematodes, mosquito larvae, Colorado beetles and boll weevils.
These properties, and others, known to Indians for millennia, have led to the tree's being called in Sanskrit Sarva Roga Nivarini, the curer of all ailments', or in the Muslim tradition, Shajar-e-Mubarak, the blessed tree'. Access to its various products has been free or cheap: there are some 14 million neem trees in India and the age-old village techniques for extracting the seed oil and pesticidal emulsions do not require expensive equipment. A large number of different medicinal compounds based upon neem are commonly available.
In the last 70 years, there has been considerable research upon the properties of neem carried in institutes ranging from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute and the Malaria Research Centre to the Tata Energy Research Institute and the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC). Much of this research was fostered by Gandhian movements, such as the Boycott of Foreign Goods movement, which encouraged the development and manufacture of local Indian products. A number of neem-based commercial products, including pesticides, medicines and cosmetics, have come on the market in recent years, some of them produced in the small-scale sector under the banner of the KVIC, others by medium-sized laboratories. However, there has been no attempt to acquire proprietary ownership of formulae, since, under Indian law, agricultural and medicinal products are not patentable.
Patent appeal
For centuries the Western world ignored the neem tree and its properties: the practices of Indian peasants and doctors were not deemed worthy of attention by the majority of British, French and Portuguese colonialists. However, in the last few years, growing opposition to chemical products in the West in particular to pesticides, has led to a sudden enthusiasm for the pharmaceutical properties of neem.
In 1971, US timber importer Robert Larson observed the tree's usefulness in India and began importing neem seed to his company headquarters in Wisconsin. Over the next decade he conducted safety and performance tests upon a pesticidal neem extract called Margosan-O and in 1985 received clearance for the product from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Three years later he sold the patent for the product to the multinational chemical corporation, W R Grace and Co. Since 1985, over a dozen US patents have been taken out by US and Japanese firms on formulae for stable neem-based solutions and emulsions and even for a neem-based toothpaste. At least four of these are owned by W R Grace, three by another US company, the Native Plant Institute, and two by the Japanese Terumo Corporation.
Having garnered their patents and with the prospect of a licence from the EPA, Grace has set about manufacturing and commercialising their product by establishing a base in India. The company approached several Indian manufacturers with proposals to buy up their technology or to convince them to stop producing value-added products and instead supply the company with raw material.
In many cases, Grace met a rebuff. M N Sukhatme, Director of Herringer Bright Chemicals Pvt. Ltd, which manufactures the neem-based insecticide Indiara, was put under pressure by Grace to sell the technology for a storage-stable neem extract, which does not require heating or any chemical change. Sukhatme refused their offers, stating: 'I am not interested to commercialise the product.'
But Grace eventually managed to arrange a joint venture with a firm called P J Margo Pvt. Ltd. They are now setting up a plant in India which will process neem seed for export to the US. Initially, the plant will process 20 tons of seed a day. They are also setting up a network of neem seed suppliers, to ensure a constant supply of the seeds and a reliable price. Grace is likely to be followed by other patent-holding companies. In 1992, the US National Research Council published a report designed to 'open up the Western world's corporate eyes to the seemingly endless variety of products the tree might offer'.
According to one of the members of the NRC panel, 'In this day and age, when we're not very happy about synthetic pesticides, [neem] has great appeal.'
This appeal is blatantly commercial. The US pesticides market is worth about $2 billion. At the moment biopesticides, such as pyrethrum, together with their synthetic mimics, constitute about $450 million of this, but that figure is expected to rise to over $800 million by 1998. 'Squeezing bucks out of the neem ought to be relatively easy,' observes Science magazine.
Plagiarism or innovation?
Grace's aggressive interest in Indian neem production has provoked a chorus of objections from Indian scientists, farmers and political activists, who assert that multinational companies have no right to expropriate the fruit of centuries of indigenous experimentation and several decades of Indian scientific research. This has stimulated a bitter transcontinental debate about the ethics of intellectual property and patent rights.
In April 1993, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report to US Congress set out some of the arguments used to justify patenting:
'Azadirachtin itself is a natural product found in the seeds of the neem tree and it is the significant active component. There is no patent on it, perhaps because everyone recognises it as a product of nature. But ... a synthetic form of a naturally occurring compound may be patentable, because the synthetic form is not technically a product of nature, and the process by which the compound is synthesised may be patentable.'
However, neither azadirachtin, a relatively complex chemical, nor any of the other active principles have yet been synthesised in laboratories. The existing patents apply only to methods of extracting the natural chemical in the form of a stable emulsion or solution, methods which are simply an extension of the traditional processes used for millennia for making neem-based products. The biologically active polar chemicals can be extracted using technology already available to villages in developing countries, says Eugene Schulz, chair of the NRC panel. Villagers smash'em [the seeds] up, soak [them] in cold water overnight, scoop the emulsion off the top and throw it on the crops.'
W R Grace's justification for patents, therefore, pivots on the claim that these modernised extraction processes constitute a genuine innovation:
'Although traditional knowledge inspired the research and development that led to these patented compositions and processes, they were considered sufficiently novel and different from the original product of nature and the traditional method of use to be patentable.'
'Azadirachtin, which was being destroyed during conventional processing of Neem Oil/Neem Cake is being additionally extracted in the form of Water Soluble Neem Extract and hence it is an add-on rather than a substitute to the current neem industry in India.'
In short, the processes are supposedly novel and an advance on Indian techniques. However, this novelty exists mainly in the context of the ignorance of the West. Over the 2,000 years that neem-based biopesticides and medicines have been used in India, many complex processes were developed to make them available for specific use, though the active ingredients were not given Latinised scientific names. Common knowledge and common use of neem was one of the primary reasons given by the Indian Central Insecticide Board for not registering neem products under the Insecticides Act, 1968. The Board argued that neem materials had been in extensive use in India for various purposes since time immemorial, without any known deleterious effects. The US EPA, on the other hand, does not accept the validity of traditional knowledge and has imposed a full series of safety tests upon Margosan-O.
The allegation that azadirachtin was being destroyed during traditional processing is inaccurate. The extracts were subject to degradation, but this was not a problem since farmers put such extracts to use as and when they needed them. The problem of stabilisation arose only when it needed to be packaged for a long time to be marketed commercially. Moreover, stabilisation and other advances attributable to modern laboratory technology had already been developed by Indian scientists in the 1960s and 1970s, well before US and Japanese companies expressed interest in them. Dr R P Singh of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute asserts:
'Margosan-O is a simple ethanolic extract of neem seed kernel. In the late sixties we discovered the potency of not only ethanolic extract, but also other extracts of neem ... Work on the neem as pesticide originated from this division as early as 1962. Extraction techniques were also developed by a couple of years. The azadirachtin-rich dust was developed by me.' The reluctance of Indian scientists to patent their inventions, thus leaving their work vulnerable to piracy, may in part derive from a recognition that the bulk of the work had already been accomplished by generations of anonymous experimenters. This debt has yet to be acknowledged by the US patentors and their apologists. The CRS report claims that 'the method of scattering ground neem seeds as a pesticide would not be a patentable process, because this process ... would be deemed obvious' - a statement that betrays either lamentable misjudgement or a racist dismissal of indigenous knowledge. The discovery of neem's pesticidal properties and of how to process it was by no means 'obvious', but evolved through extended systematic knowledge development in non-Western cultures. In comparison to this first non-obvious leap of knowledge, it is the subsequent minor derivatives that are 'obvious'.
From waste to wealth?
W R Grace and P J Margo also claim that their project benefits the Indian economy. It does so, they say, by'providing employment opportunities at the local level and higher remuneration to the farmers as the price of Neem Seeds has gone up in the recent times because value is being added to it during its process. Over the last 20 years the price of neem seed has gone up from Rs300 a ton to current levels of Rs3000-4000 a ton.'
In fact, the price has risen considerably more than this: in 1992 Grace was facing prices of up to $300 (over 8,000 rupees) per ton.
This increase in the price of neem seeds has turned an often free resource into an exorbitantly priced one, with the local user now competing for the seed with an industry supplying consumers in the North. As the local farmer cannot afford the price that the industry can, the diversion of the seed as raw material from the community to industry will ultimately establish a regime in which a handful of companies holding patents will control all access to neem as raw material and all production processes. P J Margo claims that this is 'a classic case of converting waste to wealth and beneficial to the Indian farmer and its economy'. This statement is in turn a classic example of the assumption that local use of a product does not create wealth but waste; and that wealth is created only when corporations commercialise the resources used by local communities.
There is a growing awareness throughout India that the commoditisation of neem will result in its expropriation by multinational companies. On 15 August, Indian Independence Day, farmers in the state of Karnataka rallied outside the offices of the District Collector in each district, to challenge the claims of those multinational companies such as W R Grace demanding 'intellectual property rights'. The farmers carried neem branches as a symbol of collective indigenous knowledge.
Their campaign has been supported by many noted Indian scientists. Dr R P Singh expressed his 'whole [hearted] support [for the] campaign against the globalisation of the neem.' Dr B N Dhawan, Emeritus Scientist at the Central Drug Research Institute, maintains: 'It is really unfortunate that the benefits of all this work should go to an individual or to a company. I sincerely hope that .. the neem will continue to remain available for use by people all over the world without paying a high price to a company.'
Dr V P Sharma, Director of the Malaria Research Institute, agrees:
'We have discovered the repellent action of the neem oil. There is no question of anybody else in India or outside taking a priority or patent on this aspect of neem oil. I would like this discovery to be used as widely as possible to prevent nuisance from insect pests of public health importance and in the prevention of diseases transmitted by them.
Betty Jean - Please consider the effects of your purchasing power.
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Subject: Neem
Posted by Daniel311 (from Lod
(Israel)) on April 14, 2008 at 9:48 PM:
Photographs with the article are not the "Neem Tree", flower photograph I am really doughtful, because although Neem flower looks like the one in photograph; however they are always in bunches.
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Subject: RIGHT ON SISTER!
Posted by docgipe (from NORTH CENTRAL PENNSY, PA) on April 14, 2008 at 5:22 PM:
I have used Neem Oil or other horticultural oil from plants for over fifty years. Good Stuff for sure!
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Subject: The Neem Tree.
Posted by Padmini (from Chennai
(India)) on April 14, 2008 at 1:39 PM:
Interesting to hear that you are using it so far away.
I use the "neem cake" as a fertiliser. That is the stuff left after extracting the oil .
Some years ago,I also collected the fallen leaves and used them to produce the smoke which keeps the mosquitoes out of the house at dusk.
When my daughter and I had chicken-pox, 10 years ago, the torture of the vesicles was eased
by bathing in water boiled with green neem leaves and the irritation soothed by stroking the limbs with a bunch of green neem leaves.
A bunch of green neem leaves tied to a doorway tells the world that there is an infectious disease around so please don't come in--one of my neighbours had put one up a few years ago.
My grandfather's sister, who had six younger brothers, told me the tale that when she returned from school, she would see the neem leaves tied to the doorpost and say, "Ah-ha, there's a new baby in the house today."
My grandfather planted three neem trees adjacent to our compund wall when he was 75 years old, as he wanted shade in his bedroom, on the ground floor. All of us grandchildren, laughed and said, "He expects those to grow and give him shade!" What we did not know was that he would live to 95 and that the trees gave shade not just to his room but also to my bedroom above his.
I was forced to chop the last of the trees last year as the roots were messing up our water-meter chamber. However I salvaged one small stump which I use as a pot-stand in my drawing-room.
Padmini Raghavan in Chennai, (formerly Madras) South India.
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Posted by threegardeners (from North Augusta, ON) on April 14, 2008 at 4:53 PM:
What a wonderful story about your Grandfather.
Thank you also for mentioning some of the additional benefits of the Neem tree.
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Subject: Very odd
Posted by CaptMicha (from Brookeville, MD) on April 12, 2008 at 7:02 PM:
It's very odd that neem oil seems to be so effective for everyone else but I tried it multiple times on my plants that had aphids, white flies and mealy bugs and it didn't do anything!
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Posted by threegardeners (from North Augusta, ON) on April 12, 2008 at 7:05 PM:
That is odd!!
I have found that I have to be very vigilant in the spraying regimen, every 5 days faithfully, and it takes 4 applications to eradicate the bugs.
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Posted by HollyAnnS (from Dover, PA) on April 12, 2008 at 10:38 PM:
I've been told that there are some products that have neem in them but do not do the trick. You must have just Neem oil. Threegardeners do you know if that's correct? Maybe that was CaptMicha's problem?
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Posted by CaptMicha (from Brookeville, MD) on April 12, 2008 at 10:43 PM:
I used products with neem, not 100% neem. I wonder why that is. It also contained chrysanthemum extract.
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Posted by threegardeners (from North Augusta, ON) on April 12, 2008 at 10:45 PM:
That might have been the problem. It needs to be a high concentration of Neem. The one I use is 100% Neem.
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Subject: Interesting...
Posted by darius (from Marion, VA) on April 12, 2008 at 3:05 PM:
I'd heard of Neem, but didn't know much about it. Thanks.
place.
since I picked the rainiest week of the summer to do it. I also learned the hard way that after spraying, avoid having the plants in full sun for a couple of days or their leaves will burn. I have used it on all of my house plants except for the furry leaved varieties such as African Violets.
