Neem Oil in garden?

flashnazia

Apparently neem oil is a good insect/pest repellant. Has anyone tried it?

peter_the_piper

Not sure, but use with care.
""Studies done when Azadirachtin (the primary active pesticidal ingredient in neem oil) was approved as a pesticide showed that when neem leaves were fed to male albino rats for 11 weeks, 100% (reversible) infertility resulted.[6]
Neem oil and other neem products such as neem leaves and neem tea should not be consumed by pregnant women, women trying to conceive, or children.I][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]citation needed[/URL][/I
There is some evidence that internal medicinal use may be associated with liver damage in children.[7]""
Excerpt from Wikipedia.

flashnazia

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Not sure, but use with care.
""Studies done when Azadirachtin (the primary active pesticidal ingredient in neem oil) was approved as a pesticide showed that when neem leaves were fed to male albino rats for 11 weeks, 100% (reversible) infertility resulted.[6]
Neem oil and other neem products such as neem leaves and neem tea should not be consumed by pregnant women, women trying to conceive, or children.I][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]citation needed[/URL][/I
There is some evidence that internal medicinal use may be associated with liver damage in children.[7]""
Excerpt from Wikipedia.

I wasn't planning on eating it
Spraying on plants maybe?

I_have_spoken

Has anyone tried it?

I've got a some, was planning on using it to control scale insects on house plants. My intention was to dilute and water it on and let the plants take it up via the sap.

But in the meantime, I've just been spraying with Provado.

Best take some simple precautions -

stumpycat

I've used it (with great success) on headlice (son) and Red Mite (chickens) and am about to spray my gooseberry bushes with it before they are reduced to twigs by sawflies...

It will affect a range of invertebrates, so I'm careful to try & target where it's needed. It kills the pests directly and also stops ecdysis - so they can't moult into the next stage - and if they don't mature, they can't reproduce. There's quite a bit of research being done on its use in treating poultry pests.