Neem Tree

[Frank Woolf]

Neem is a source of environment-friendly biopesticides. The unique feature of neem products is that they do not directly kill the pests, but alter the life-processing behavior in such a manner that the insect can no longer feed, breed or undergo metamorphosis. However, this does not mean that the plant extracts are harmful to all insects. Since, to be effective, the product has to be ingested, only the insects that feed on plant tissues succumb. Those that feed on nectar or other insects, such as butterflies, bees, and ladybugs, hardly accumulate significant concentrations of neem products.

Neem is deemed very effective in the treatment of scabies although only preliminary scientific proof exists which still has to be corroborated, and is recommended for those who are sensitive to permethrin, a known insecticide which might be an irritant. Also, the scabies mite has yet to become resistant to neem, so in persistent cases neem has been shown to be very effective. There is also anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness in treating infestations of head lice in humans. A tea made of boiled neem leaves, sometimes combined with other herbs such as ginger, can be ingested to fight intestinal worms.

The oil is also used in sprays against fleas in cats and dogs.

[Frank Woolf]

Seeds have the greatest concentration of oils, especially azadirachtin but leaves and twigs also contain similar oils in smaller quantities.

About 5 kg of twigs and leaves chopped and mixed with 20 liters of water boiled and stirred then and left to cool for a day or two before being filtered. The resulting liquid can be sprayed over plants being attacked by insects that eat the plants.

Neem may be the world most efficient insect repellent with extracts from its fruit, kernels, leaves, and twigs, which yield a compound known as “azadirachtian” and which is systemic in action and has both insecticide and fungicide properties. The demand for Neem oil is already out-stripping supply.

The use of Neem tree as tooth-brush by crushing of end of a branch let having the thickness of a pencil, is common in the rural areas of South Asia and goes back many thousand years.

Today it is known that it contains world’s best known natural dentifrice for manufacture of toothpaste.

The Neem oil has been used for various purposes including skin care, soaps and etc., in South Asia. The leaves are boiled in water for extracting azadeirachtian and diluted in water; it is taken orally against many diseases and used as bath for skin diseases. Neem is related to mahogany and has beautiful hard wood of pink color, highly suitable for furniture. At an age of about 20 years, the tree produces wood which is surpassed only by mahogany, teak and shsham. One aspect of it is that once furniture is made from its wood, it keeps on darkening i.e., acquiring deep pink color with age. Its timber besides being durable is not attacked by termites.

The neem tree prefers well drained deep soil and sandy-loams, with ground water at 10 feet depth or more. It takes about five years to produce the first fruit crop, but with application of mulch, irrigating and nutrition feeding, it can produce a good crop in the third year.

While it is growing, leaves can be harvested at the time of pruning or shaping the tree and used as insecticide or mulch in orchards. Its tap root is capable of reaching ground water 8-10 meters deep and thus can survive the arid conditions for long time without irrigation. It can survive in an annual rainfall of 12” or 1-2 irrigation/annually but for high yields of leaves and seeds, it needs irrigation.

Its seeds are harvested by shaking the tree. The seeds which usually are about 2 cm long and 1.5 cm diameter, yield kernel of about 1.5 cm length, containing about 30 to 40 percent oil. Pulp is removed and being sweet, it attracts birds and children the yield from 5-6 years old tree could be 20 kg kernels, which would produce 6-8 kg of oil and the residue can also be processed or emulsion in water and used as insecticide or as fertilizer.

Besides Azadirachtin neem extracts contain other oils namely; salannin, meliantriol, nimbin, nimbidin, limonoids and many other minor ingredients. These oils have different effects on insects. They can also control various viruses of fruits, vegetables, field crops, livestock and may be human viruses.

Their effect on insects is not to kill them out-right, but rather disrupting or inhibiting development of eggs, larvae, and pupae, blocking moulting of larvae or nymphs, disrupting mating, repelling larvae and adults, deterring female from laying eggs, sterilizing adults or deterring their feeding or blocking ability to swallow and inhibiting formation of chitin. In these processes, the insect and their future generations are eliminated.

Neem oils affect at least 200 insect species some of which are resistant to conventional pesticides. These include most resistant insects like sweet potato white-fly, green peach aphid, cotton aphid, floral thrips, diamondback moths, leaf-minors, fruit-flies, house-flies, white-flies, horn-flies, face-flies, shoot-flies, various kind of mosquitoes, flees, lice, beetles, grubs, erinose mite of lychee and other mites, cockroaches, aphids, thrips, moths, ear-worms, cob-worms, boll-worms, army-worms, bud-worms, horn-worms, buck-worms, hoppers, bugs, ants, weevils, various larvae, beetles, various kinds of hoppers, green vegetable bugs, root nematodes, brown ant hoppers, scale insects, grubs and etc.

Neem leaf mulch snails, crustaceans, fungi, and aflotoxin. Neem is successfully used as insecticide in case of lice (human and animal) fleas, ticks and grain insects. Neem oil can also be used as fungicide against powdery-mildew and even some viruses. Neem oil is also helpful for human health and the oil is known to work as fungicide, anti-bacterial and anti-viral and for wound-heeling, dental treatment and Chaga’s disease. Internal vaginal application of neem oil has helped as birth control measures, replacing castor nut taken orally since ages. It also relieves pains and controls skin bacteria and fungus.

Neem oils is commonly used in soaps and cosmetics in India. Neem oil cake can be used as fertilizer as it is rich in nitrogen, phosphates, potash and micro nutrients.

It has been recognized across the world for new pesticides, which have no objection for being used in IPM (Integrated Pest Management) as it does not kill the predators of many insects and bees and thus is a friendly pesticide. On the other hand it attracts many beneficial insect species and butterflies, micro-wasps and bark hoppers, which become predators as well as pollinators of many fruit crops. Its leaf litter attracts micro-fauna which renew the soil. It increases the pH of acid soils and quickly raises it to about 7.0 or neutral soil.

Neems azadirachtian has the ability to upset the hormonal system of insects making their reproductive system ineffective for reproduction. The effect of spray lasts from a few days to about a month and the concentration used is from 0.01 – 0.10 percent. It is a true systemic biological insecticide and most suitable for Integrated Pest Management.

Neem tree while standing in an orchard does not keep insects away from other trees. However it attracts a range of insects, which can control pests on other trees as predators.

[abu farsi]

I was so happy to find out that I already had a neem fence next to my garden. I of course picked many kilos of this leafy plant, soaked them in water for days (not boiled) and then sprayed this tea on my baby calabasa that was being attacked by red bug.

At first, I noted that many of the plants remained eaten by those damned little red bugs, but they have to eat it in order to be killed by the neem, right? And when I was looking for the dead little red bugs, I could not find any! Still, maybe Neem did not kill um on the spot, but they flew off and died someplace else...

After many days and the loss of those crucial first leaves on my poor baby cvalabasa..

I found that I was using the product wrong by spraying it on the plants, I got 100% results by picking those little red Suns a Bitches and drowning them in the neem tea bucket, for a 100% kill rate.

[Frank Woolf]

Neem does not directly kill the bugs. It messes up their reproductive and eating systems somehow so they may well move on before they die.

I boiled the leaves and it worked great for me. I never tried just soaking them. Were the bugs actually eating the plants? Some seem to be able to do a lot of damage without actually eating the plant.

[abu farsi]

You bet they were. Red bug looks like a orange/red ladybug, no spots. They fly in from other places. If you have a calabasa crop, you might start out with a field with not a single bug in it, as it is tilled. Then when your baby calabasas come up they have very tender leaves and red bug loves to eat them, they can stunt your crop weeks. I have had them kill 10% of my plants. Red bug does not eat mature leaves, so if your crop is older, they do little damage.

I was told of the Neem plants growing near the edge of my field by a person who came to my barranguy to teach organic farming. She was also the one who suggested collecting Neem small twigs and leaves, mashing them and soaking the mash 3 days in the sun.

She did not suggest red bug as a target species. Just that if I could not afford insecticide, Neem tea would work.


Abu

[Frank Woolf]

It is strange that someone who teaches organic farming would suggest neem only if you can't afford pesticide but maybe she meant organic pesticide.

I don't currently have enough neem available to do more tests. I wish I had. The one time I tested it I couldn't even identify for sure what was causing all the damage but the difference after spraying was dramatic.

How big are these red bugs? I recently had around a hundred bugs that look like skinny stink bugs a bit less than 1" long all over one of my runner beans. They are a powdery light brown but under the wings on the back is a bright red patch. They killed one runner bean, then moved to the cucumbers and killed one then I found them on the climbing flowers on the fence.

[abu farsi]

They are sucking insects and are only susceptible to systemic insecticides.
It is rare that they actually kill a plant but they can severely damage the look of the beans, and stunt the plants with even slight infestations.

[Frank Woolf]

If they are sucking from the plant then neem should work if I can find some.

[Frank Woolf]

Just a quick update to this thread.

I have used the liquid from boiled Neem leaves a few times now and the results have been very good. Mostly I never saw what was damaging the plant but the plants greatly improved after being sprayed.

Now I have about a dozen small trees and one large one at the beach lot and I have been planting seedlings at the home/farm.