soil pests

[baggyman]

Is there a pesticide on the market for soil borne pests?
Don't want to upset you organic people but each to their own!
Thanks

[mcsee]

Using a Pesticide for soil borne pests will wipe out all the soil fauna and make your soil useless for years.

[arpoet]

I agree.. use with extreme caution if all else fails as they will ruin the balance of the soil.
Roger

[Aberdeenplotter]

Is there a pesticide on the market for soil borne pests?
Don't want to upset you organic people but each to their own!
Thanks

What pests are you trying to eradicate? A blanket blitz on everything in the soil would just be plain stupid.

[Snadger]

There are a lot of 'good guys' in the soil as well baggyman.

Soil pesticides have to be applied at very high dosage (saturating the soil) to permeate through the topsoil. This means that any residue will hit the subsoil, usually clay, and ultimately finish up in the waterways causing indescriminate damage.

This is why there are no soil pesticides available to the amateur.

Either steaming or burning small ammounts is sometimes practised for sterilising composts.

[Two_Sheds]

What pest is bothering you Baggyman? There will be a specific remedy for it, I'm sure

[baggyman]

Bit of everything really, cabbage root fly, flea beetle, carrot fly wire worm etc you name it , I got it
How would you steam soil?

[baggyman]

What pests are you trying to eradicate? A blanket blitz on everything in the soil would just be plain stupid.

Guess I must be plain stooopid then

[Aberdeenplotter]

Ok, let's be a bit realistic here. You have cabbage root fly, flea beetle and carrot fly. You can minimise if not totally eradicate the damage from each of these pests by using a barrier such as fleece or environmesh. Having said that, I lost my first sowing of carrots for the kitchen and also my parsley to the fly. Must have shut them in instead of shutting them out. That makes me the stupid one. I didn't have the edges of my fleece properly fixed down so a lesson there for everyone.

Wireworm(larvae of the click beetle) are a different kettle of fish and not something I have direct experience of, but there are a few ideas on this web site. Creating the Wire Worm-Free Garden. I think the objective really is to break the reproductive cycle.

[Two_Sheds]

cabbage root fly

isn't a soil pest, it's a fly - you can easily stop the damage by laying collars around your cabbage stems when planting out

flea beetle

again, not a soil pest at all, it's a beetle on the leaves. Treating the soil would have no effect on it whatsoever. The damage is usually superficial. If it really bothers you, move along the row with a sticky pad (home-made). The beetles will jump up and stick to the trap

carrot fly

Again, not a soil pest, it's a fly. You need to cover the crop from start to finish

wire worm

Now this one is a soil pest, but is virtually eradicated once you start cultivating the ground: it hates being disturbed

[Snadger]

.....................
How would you steam soil?

Small ammounts for potting compost can be
'steamed' in a microwave.