# Slugs and snails



## swamprad (Oct 20, 2009)

I've had quite a few plants, predominately my catts and oncidium intergenerics, growing on the floor on my back porch all summer. All of these plants are in semi-hydro. Well, it seems I've attracted some slugs and or snails. Over the past few weeks, they've done a good job of eating several flowers and buds. I will be moving them all into my new greenhouse in a couple of weeks. 

I've read about using metaldehyde, beer, copper, and iron pellets. I would love to eradicate the slugs/snails prior to moving into the greenhouse, but I do have a nosy kitty outdoors, and I am concerned about using metaldehyde. What has worked for you? If I do use metaldehyde (picked up some Slug-Getta at Lowes), can I pour it directly in the pots or will it be harmful to the roots? Can I put the iron pellets (which are apparently not pet toxic) directly in the pots? Any insight would be appreciated!


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## nikv (Oct 20, 2009)

I would not put the Bug Geta pellets direction onto the potting medium. You'll end up with a moldy mess otherwise. I haven't had a problem with critters trying to eat it, but better safe than sorry, I guess. A saucer of beer is supposed to attract them like flies to doo-doo. You could simply crush them the next morning if they haven't already drown in it. Should take care of the problem.


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## goldenrose (Oct 20, 2009)

Why not use/make some type of wire cage, the slugs can crawl thru to the pellets, the cat can't!


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## biothanasis (Oct 20, 2009)

If Nik is right about the beer, then it sounds as the safest way to get rid of them.... or perhaps find your kitty drunk...oke:


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## Leo Schordje (Oct 20, 2009)

I prefer to drink the beer while I look for slugs to squash. 

I too would like advice on how to kill slugs, the beer trick doesn't kill enough, it leaves a resident population of tea-totalling slugs to continue on munching the plants. 

How does one apply Slug Getta to get the best kill of the slugs? I seem to be able to knock them back, but never completely eliminate them. 

Any other chemicals that work? I have no pets to worry about.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Oct 20, 2009)

Go for the iron phosphate..totally safe and, in my experience, more effective than metaldehyde bait. You can put some in the plants. It only works on slugs, not snails...


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## cnycharles (Oct 20, 2009)

best might be to repot before bringing inside, if all s/h pellets then put them on a pan and in oven (the pellets not the plants) for a few hours, rinse the pots with something likely to kill bugs cleanly, and dip the plant roots I think in hot water. can't remember where but I think orchids can handle 120˚ water for a little while but bugs can't. best to wash them all off and trim bad roots. I would look around though for better confirmation to see what level the heat was good at, and for which bug before going ahead. 

there also has been the discussion on using caffeine, which will kill them, but you would really need to buy an amount of pharmacy grade stuff so that you would have enough to kill them, not just a few no doze pills in a jug. I tried to find some in pharmacy that were strong enough, but didn't succeed; there have been discussions here about caffeine and slugs/snails, search would show amounts talked about to control bugs

that said, I think the best would be to clean and repot, and treat what has been cleaned (much lower pest count to possibly survive)(treating either before or after repotting but cleaning out the potting material). I don't think you would have a very good chance at completely getting rid of them unless you do the cleaning and changing potting material along with using control measures to kill them, whether it's a bug on the plant or in the pot


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## fbrem (Oct 20, 2009)

apple slices, headlamp, tweezers, and diligence. oh yeah, and keep em off the ground


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## Ernie (Oct 20, 2009)

Screw the slugs, I want to see pictures of your NEW GREENHOUSE!!! 

-Ernie


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## NYEric (Oct 21, 2009)

Did someone say escargot!? :evil:


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## noel (Oct 21, 2009)

if you want to kill slugs,just sprinkle salt over it,they shrink and died straight away...not when it's in your orchid pot tough....


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Oct 21, 2009)

I've seen slugs slime off the salt then crawl away....


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## Bob in Albany N.Y. (Oct 22, 2009)

Eric, It might be a good idea to inform the members where one might by iron phosphate. I'm sorry, that should have come out more like a question. Please teach us.


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## likespaphs (Oct 22, 2009)

iron phosphate is available in a product called sluggo and another one but i forget the name of that one.
there is also a formulation of sluggo that has a product to help control sow bugs, i think.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Oct 22, 2009)

There are many brands now..I can even buy it at my local garden center. Every mail order supply carries it...main brands are Sluggo and Escar-Go.


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## lindafrog (Oct 23, 2009)

how many orchids do you have? Have you tried dunking each pot. Put the plant in a pail fill it with You might add a squirt of mild soap. I use Dr. Bronners peppermint or you can use dish soap. With in minutes slugs, snails, pill bugs etc will surrender. I do this with all new plants. Once 15 snails crawled out from a plant I just purchased from a vendor! Hope this helps, those nasty bugs need to be elimated before they take over inside.


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## cnycharles (Oct 23, 2009)

good idea! I just did that with some mushrooms I picked to get rid of bugs, should do just the same for pots


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## Lanmark (Oct 26, 2009)

I don't know how strong of a caffeine solution you were referring to, cnycharles, but I used 500mg of caffeine dissolved in 6 ounces of RO water to kill a plethora of tiny orchid snails which arrived entrenched in and feeding on a specimen-size mounted Trichoglottis triflora I purchased on eBay earlier this year. It is a tiny plant in spite of the fact it is specimen-sized, but it was teeming with snails nonetheless. They were hiding all through the roots and in the moss growing on the wood mount and in the fissures in the wood. I didn't recognize this infestation until a couple of days into my standard quarantine procedure.

Here in Michigan we can buy over-the-counter 200mg caffeine pills in Walmart and at most grocery markets and pharmacies. I used two and a half of these tablets dissolved in six ounces of RO water. I placed a paper coffee filter inside of a sieve and used this contraption to filter the solids out of the solution once the pills were dissolved. I waited until evening and then sprayed the plant until it was soaking wet with this solution. When morning came I thoroughly rinsed the caffeine off the plant using plain RO water. I repeated this process four or five days in a row. All the beautiful moss growing on the wood mount died off completely but so did the snails. The snail damage stopped and my plant began to thrive. After the initial treatment I continued to spray this solution on the plant for two consecutive nights (and rinsing it away in the morning) every three or four weeks just to be sure I'd killed any new hatchlings. After a couple of cycles of doing that, I stopped. Now the plant resides with the rest of my collection. No snails. I wouldn't be afraid to try this solution on stiff-leaved orchids such as Catts or Vandaceous types, but I don't know how safe it would be for those with softer leaves.

edit: I should also note here that I kept a low-speed fan running and directed at the plant during the treatment periods to ensure that the entire plant and the mount were bone dry prior to being sprayed with the caffeine solution in the evenings. I speculated that the snails would be thirsty by the time the caffeinated water hit their home turf. By morning, the plant would be bone dry again and the leaves, roots and mount would be covered with a thin sparkly yellow film of crystallized caffeine which rinsed away very easily. Maybe I was playing dangerously with the risk of killing my plant, but for whatever reason, it survived and the orchid snails didn't.


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## SlipperFan (Oct 26, 2009)

Interesting process, Mark. I didn't know caffeine was available like that.

I've heard that nicotine is also lethal to bugs, but is very dangerous to use.


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## Lanmark (Oct 26, 2009)

Honestly I'm no expert in this matter.  All I know is that the snails had to go before I could have peace of mind. I don't know if the snails either left or died from caffeine exposure or from the periods of utter dryness I imposed upon them. They literally fell from the plant each night and I gathered them up each morning for disposal. My solution strength would have been less than .5% but then again the plant was thinly coated with crystalline caffeine each morning before I rinsed it off. A plant not nearly so tough as Trichoglottis triflora would surely have succumbed to such inhospitable treatment.

Fear of nicotine is a good thing, Dot :wink: I remember years ago when liquid nicotine sulfate was on the shelves available for purchase as a pesticide. Scary stuff! It's really frustrating, though, when pests attack our plants and we have to scramble and figure out how to beat them back. It's not always an easy thing to do.


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## Clark (Oct 26, 2009)

This link gives the numbers on toxicity.
If one scrolls down, pit nicotine vs. pyrethrins.

http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/ipm/insects/ld50.htm

Anybody have a lite?


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## SlipperFan (Oct 27, 2009)

Clark E said:


> This link gives the numbers on toxicity.
> If one scrolls down, pit nicotine vs. pyrethrins.
> 
> http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/ipm/insects/ld50.htm
> ...



Or imidacloprid.

Very scary!

Thanks, Clark. Good link.


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## Clark (Oct 27, 2009)

How 'bout some chew?


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Oct 28, 2009)

virus!


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## Rick (Oct 28, 2009)

My green house is too porous to keep them out, so when they get out of control then I use either the metalhyde or iron phosphate brands with equal effectiveness. I have gotten both into pots in small amounts with no obvious problems, but I've only purposely tossed some onto Catts, which don't seem to care about much of anything.

The iron phosphate seems to be a good bait to "attract" the slugs away from the plants. So tossing the stuff along walls and between pots on benches seems to be adequate to draw them away from the plants in most cases.

I didn't have much luck with beer. Maybe need allot more trap sites than what I used.


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## Leo Schordje (Oct 29, 2009)

I did try the caffine solution some 6 years ago. At the time I could get lab reagent grade caffine. (alas, no longer true). The article I used to based my dose rate on is on the work computer that I no longer have access to. I believe it was a 0.5% solution. It took me 15 gallons of spray to completely wet the foliage and drench all the pots in my collection once. I went through 500 grams of caffine, at a cost of about $125 for one 500 gram bottle of caffine. The treatment of a 1000 plant collection seemed to work, excellent results for a one time application. But because of the cost I did not follow up with repeat applications. The slugs came back after a while. I did get an unsightly residue on the leaves. It washed off in time. Unless I get a better suggestion, I think I will stick to metaldehyde and / or the iron phosphate.


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## lindafrog (Oct 30, 2009)

to LanMark. that is horrible to find so many snails in a newly purchased plants. Shame on the seller, did you leave approiapriate feed back or atleast warn others. I've sold many plants through the mail and always dunked and quarantined them prior to shipping. Its the least any seller can do for the people who support them by buying their orchids.


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## Lanmark (Oct 30, 2009)

lindafrog said:


> to LanMark. that is horrible to find so many snails in a newly purchased plants. Shame on the seller, did you leave approiapriate feed back or atleast warn others. I've sold many plants through the mail and always dunked and quarantined them prior to shipping. Its the least any seller can do for the people who support them by buying their orchids.



Yes. I felt like a heel for doing it, but I posted positive feedback saying thanks for the large plant but check your other orchids for snails.  I have had two different sellers on eBay send me plants quite badly infested with orchid snails. One snaily plant was also covered with Pink Hibiscus Mealy Bugs. One purchase is enough from a seller like that. I smile and say thank you. I leave polite appropriate feedback and move on. It's not worth the stress to have a cow about it, and asking for a replacement would likely get me another infested plant. 

I understand the occasional pest on a plant. Life happens. Plants being sold in a state of obvious and overwhelming infestion, on the other hand, truly is discourteous to the customer.

I'm prepared, whatever the case may be. All new plants are automatically placed in my quarantine area when they arrive at my home. Any pests or diseases are duly eradicated if possible or discarded if I can't remedy the situation. Only when I am certain they are completely clean do I place them with my other plants.


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## Clark (Nov 9, 2009)

At the moment, I am convinced that my minor snail problem is a result of the last bag of sphag. bought from local home center. Bags are small, didn't have problem with previous bag.
I use the sphag for just out of flask, and problem is isolated with that tray of various small plants.


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## cnycharles (Nov 9, 2009)

clark, you can take the small amount of sphagnum that you want to use and kill critters by putting it in a plastic bag with a little water and nuking it for a little while. can't remember where I heard this first, but if you are using moss that isn't 'clean' from somewhere and might have some of those metallic green flies eggs in it, this is a good way to quickly get rid of them


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## Clark (Nov 9, 2009)

Thank you. And more than you'll ever know.
This brought back a childhood memory of my brother's advice to a punk that lived in the neighborhood-"Sure, you can cook whole fresh eggs in the micro"
Hehehe.
At the time, microwaves were the newest rage (at least in my neighborhood).
Thanks again, I have a good visual of future results.


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