Avid Mixing Instructions

[Darkhorse]

Hey everyone,

   I've been silent for awhile.  (as always, very, very busy...  ugh)  I just bought some Avid for my plants.  The mixing instructions on the bottle are per 100 gallons.  Charlie and others, how much Avid would you recommend using per gallon to get rid of mites and thrips?  Looks like I may have to get myself a pipet to measure this.  LOL

Thanks, and hope all is well everyone!

[Charlie]

Jordan, the right amount to use is 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of spray water.

Charlie

[Darkhorse]

Great, thank you Charlie!  Kontos has become a bit problematic for me as my numbers grow (not to mention not being able to flush out the soil periodically).  Hopefully Avid will be a better choice.

[Charlie]

Avid is a superior miticide and kills thrips at the same time. Use protective gear when spraying it just to be on the safe side.

Charlie

[Darkhorse]

Charlie, that's one reason I switched to Avid.  Thrips here aren't really responding to anything I've thrown at them.  Spinosad does nothing, Bayer something-or-other with B-cyflurthin only helps a little, as does orthene.  I believe they're resistance is due to all of the agriculture in the San Joaquin valley.

[davidwood]

Charlie, that's one reason I switched to Avid.  Thrips here aren't really responding to anything I've thrown at them.  Spinosad does nothing, Bayer something-or-other with B-cyflurthin only helps a little, as does orthene.  I believe they're resistance is due to all of the agriculture in the San Joaquin valley.

Jordan are you sure its Thrips, the reason I ask is I have had a similar problem with 3 of my cv's, Electric Orange and Transcendent being by far the worst, they had loads of Spinosad and it was a waste of time, it got to the point where I nearly got rid of them as I was losing about 99% of the buds. So I did a bit of reading, on here from Charlie and on the Internet, Gall Midge and another midge [I think Asian Midge] pretty much act the same way as Thrips [I have never seen the Thrips by the way] the buds develop and fall off. Anyway  to get rid of this midge I read that you need a systemic with  imidacloprid in it, so I tried Bayer 3-1 which does have this stuff about 3 weeks ago and low and behold I am now getting about 40% of my EO buds fully develop, its the same with Cream De Cacao 40 to 50%, not working yet with Transcendent at all but if its systemic I suppose it needs a certain amount of time, well I am hoping so and thats the reason, it will be nice to finally sort it out.

[farmer d]

Jordan I feel your pain with the thrips.  Everything I tried this past spring had no effect so I just had to let them run thru their lifecycle which took quite a while - some where around 3 months to die out.

I tried several products including Bayer 3-1 but nothing worked.  I might try Avid this year but I really hate spraying any insecticides.  The good news last year was that with the much improved soil replants I hardly used any Kontos as I saw very few spider mites.  Outdoors is a big advantage when dealing with spider mites it seems, not so with thrips...

Farmer D

[Charlie]

The other product that works pretty well against thrips is acephate, sold in the US for a long time as Orthene. If you can still find it, spray it over the buds and tops of the plants but avoid spraying the entire plant since it will kill many beneficial insects unnecessarily.

Avid is great for thrips but there is a big difference in how it is used for thrips versus spider mites. Mites usually only require once per month treatments with Avid (unless you have a bad outbreak in which case once per week for 2-3 weeks) but the only way to break the life cycle of thrips is to spray at least once per week (or once per 5 days) until they are gone - usually 3 or 4 treatments. Avid won't work on thrips if used only once per month.

Spinosad is a great thrip killer but they become immune to it after several treatments. Rotate it with Orthene for best results, or with Avid if you can afford it.

Charlie

[Darkhorse]

Thank you for mentioning the frequency needed with the Avid too, Charlie.  I've been spraying several times a week for mites but now feel better about cutting back. 

One product that I think I had mentioned a few years ago on the forum is Ortho Rosepride Insect, Disease, and Mite Control.  It's an acephate aerosol and smells horrid, (I use a respirator when I spray it), but it does seem to help with thrips.  It's a little impractical to use all the time for a lot of plants.  It gets expensive quickly.  I had been getting it from Amazon, though it looks like they're almost sold out now.  This website has it:

http://www.starnursery.com/chemicals/insecticides/ortho-rosepride-rose-and-flower-spray.html

Why is acephate so hard to find?

[Charlie]

Why is acephate so hard to find?

Jordan, acephate (Orthene) is one of the old standard "kills everything" pesticides in the organophosphate class along with Diazinon, Malathion, and several others. In 2001, after conducting a major review, the US government banned use of these in residences except for acephate. Apparently acephate was not found to pose the same degree of risk as the other organophosphates. You can google it as Acephate 97UP which is sold as a water soluble power - 3/4 of a pound for $15 - very cheap by pesticide standards. It has some sulfur oxides in it which is why it stinks. If you try it be sure to read the label for amount to use as it is 97 percent active ingredient - thrips use 1 teaspoon per gallon.

Charlie

[Jim]

I am using Avid as a spray (1/4 teaspoon per gallon) because I thought this was the best way. I am still seeing spider activity shortly after use. Spraying is the best for AVID correct?

I also am using KONTOS as a drench 2X per month.1/4 teaspoon per gallon

I do live in the Spider Mite Capital of the world (FL) but I was hoping with our temps being cool and the use of AVID thing might be better.   

The best thing for me seems to be the bug blaster.

Darn Spider Mites

[Bart]

Hey Charlie, Similar to Jordan's first statement, I've not posted anything for some time now; as a mater of fact, I figure you may have thought I'd given up on KY hibiscus growing. Well; Unfortunately I'm too stubborn and now, sadly, my first post in a while had to be to a Spider mite/Thrip Thread...  Just for General information, since my last actual post (I do read through the forum on the rare occasion I find some spare time) I've increased the size of my Grow-room and now have about 130-140 plants (Crazy I know). Sadly though, as I was building the new structure, Winter creeped in quickly and I lost 7 different CV's before I had an opportunity to clone. Now with all the plants, I'm only housing 7 or 8 different CV's, all yours of course due to the cold and my inability to get them inside quickly enough.  On to the issue at hand...

I've had more Thrip issues this winter than imaginable. I've pulled single leaves just to look and almost simultaneously I'm letting the sucker drop to the ground mostly out of pure shock at the thrip crawling around. Like some of you, I've tried many different avenues to rid the plants...(Talstar P- Bifenthrin 7.9%, Azadirachtin, lots of Spinosad, B-Cyfluthrin, Acephate and others) only to slow them to a point I thought I was about to overcome and then...BAM: I find I'm now infested with, you guessed it...SPIDER MITES, and badly.  I ran out of Avid early on so, based on so much popular belief, I've been trying the Talstar until such time I can get another order for Avid. Now, the real question is, is Avid the best bet? Since I'm willing to shell out whatever I must in an effort to get past this, and the fact it's not possible for me to stay on a regimen of every 5-7 days over a 3-4 week period due to my real job, I need these gone. Oh yeah...while my focus has shifted to Spider mites, Thrip are now beginning to thrive again.  When I say that I've been at this for 4 months, while living on 2-3 hours of sleep/night (no exaggerating).
I know you warned me at one time but about that same time, I went from almost 0% clone rate to almost 90% (Lucky or unlucky???), it was like rabbits reproducing...ha.

I want to give all the plants with the exception of two each CV"S to the local high schools Horticulture program but I just can do that with a problem like this.  I just purchases some Tristar - Acetamiprid 8.5% and Cleary's 3336F because I'm fearful of disease and I read that when mixing the 3336F with Spinosad, Thrip kill rate actually went up exponentially (why, I'm not sure) so I thought I'd give that a shot for the thrip but now, I need a multi-purpose killing machine or I'm burning these babies...Really!

I know I've written a book that's worth absolutely as much as a Grow-room full of mite infested Hibiscus plants but since I hadn't talked to anyone nor posted in a while, I thought I'd go ahead and bare my stupidity to everyone, all in the same message.  Not sure if there's much here that makes sense to anyone (Very tired-Just came in of a trip and getting ready to water) If You or anyone feels Kontos (sp) is the better bet or maybe it's to spray with a product called Onslaught (long-long name of active ingredient but it may actually boil down to something like S-Fenvenlate (have no clue what I'm attempting to spell but I've purchased some anyway). I'm at a lose here, similar to some of the things I've read in this thread.

Oh..My wife's ready to kill me because I've now brought thrip and mites into the house and as you know, living with thrip can be unpleasant but I'm much more confident of cleaning the house out than the Plants...I sure hope you all are doing well. You'll be seeing an order from me very soon!  Thanks for listening guys!!! Sincerely, Bart
 

[davidwood]

Bart it seems you have 2 problems, Thrips and Spider Mites and I think you should tackle each separately. I will talk only about Spider Mites and let someone with more knowledge than me advise you on Thrips.

For Mites you need Kontos, its pretty much 100% guaranteed to work, sometimes you hear of people who still have problems with Mites having used Kontos but invariably its because they have not followed the instructions correctly, if you do follow them correctly then that’s your Spider Mite problems sorted.

[Charlie]

Hi Bart, nice to hear from you again.

Avid is both a powerful mite killer and a good thrips killer. On the other hand, what you describe is not the western flower thrips that are a problem for hibiscus. Those are never seen on the leaves but only in the open flowers. Maybe you can take a good close-up photo of what you see on the leaves and post it or send it to me. The closer and more high res the better for ID. There are other types of thrips that do eat leaves but I have not heard of these being a problem on hibiscus. You really need to know for sure what the critter is that you are seeing on your leaves. My guess is that it is aphids and for them a good systemic is the way to go - Safari or Bayer Tree and Shrub or another form of imidacloprid like Marathon. 

You can find small bottles of Avid online but the larger quart size that is common has come down a lot in price since it went out of patent - still over $200 but better than before. That size should last you for years and will kill western flower thrips and spider mites.

Another combo thrip and mite killer is Pylon but it is ridiculously expensive.

If you really have a thrips problem, the smelly but very cheap Orthene is available at online outlets. Get the 97 percent pure type and it will take care of thrips. It does stink, so be prepared if you use it.

My opinion is that if you spray Avid once a week for 3 weeks you will have beaten this problem (depending on what the leaf insect is). Use it at 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of spray.

As David pointed out, Kontos has given good mite, aphid, and whitefly control to several people who have reported using it. But you have to do it right and keep doing it non-stop. Avid is easier for some situations and faster and more effective.

Charlie

[Bart]

Thanks so much Charlie and David. It's actually very good to hear from you and I feel better when I'm communicating with the good people on THIS FORUM. Very knowledgable group in comparison to some others I've happened across.  As for the Insect issue...If these aren't WFT, I'm going to be very Surprised. Now, I will admit that I've either lost or broken all of the better lenses I used to rely on and I'm using a 10X hand held glass right now. It's very difficult to see mites however; Thrips are much larger in comparison and I can see them from Nymph-Adult.  I know I have mites due to the obvious signs and webbing I can detect.  There's one other thing, insect I suppose, I am afraid I have but am reluctant to make the assumption in order to treat.  I am losing 95% of the buds which would be understandable with a bad thrip infestation but...I'm losing buds that are tiny and that's not been my past history with Thrip. I've obviously read your site from start to finish more than once and based on that, I keep coming back to Midge, which I've never seen. I'm not quite sure what else (I'm sure there could be several reasons for this) would be causing it. Does that sound probable or would you think my location would make it a rare circumstance to have Midge. I've never purchased a plant (Tropical) from anyone other than Hidden Valley Hibiscus and I don't think they're an issue for your area.

Maybe once I gather a few photo's to post (I have posted only a few to this website so I'm not sure if Resolution will be an issue or not. I will cut it back to whatever I must to make it fit and hope it's good enough for identifying.  If not, let me know and I can email and then we can continue to discuss via the forum just in case there may be something in it that helps others.

The School is anxious to receive their Hibiscus plants. As most of you know, if you aren't growing corn, tobacco, wheat, soybeans or the typical garden, You've got a rare plant in KY. Sad but true.  Again, it's Great to hear from you and thanks for the quick responses. I just want everyone to know that I appreciate all the post I see on this site. You guys are a very unselfish and proficient group of gardeners, regardless of your actual educational background and I, for one, appreciate all I read.  I will try to find some pics to post ASAP. 

[farmer d]

Hi Charlie,

Can you or Cindy explain the effects on exotic hibiscus when you use too strong of a dose of Avid.  I just found this thread and wish I had a month ago before I started spraying for spider mites.  I might have used double the strength as compared to what is recommended by you here.  The directions on the label are terrible as it goes by amounts to be used per 200 gallons.

Also does Avid kill other insects or is it just a miticide?

Thanks!

Farmer D

[Kyle]

I'm not messing around anymore with the  2 spotted mite because they are resilient and hard to kill.

Business friend recommended I mix Avid  at 5ml  per gal with filtered water, wetting agent and use it within 48hrs if mixing.
Try to mix and use the same day or 2.
The wetting agent that I used next is called Coco-Wet, by Spray and Grow.  The wetting agent  will help coat waxy leaves  for better absorption and I won't be as wasteful.   Add the wetting agent to the water 1st.
I used Avid at 5ml per gal.
That's 1tsp per gallon.  
According to the manufacture, they say to use Avid at 4FLOZ of per 100 gal of filtered water.
That's .04 FL Oz of Avid  per gal.
To make it easier, that's 11.8ml per gal.
That's over 2 tsp per gal
That seems strong.

The day before I applied Avid I showered and washed the plants.
I was a little disappointed 24-48hrs after I  applied Avid  
because there were still mites under the leaves just a few less.  
I used it at 1tsp per gallon (5ml per gal).
Didn't notice any harmful effects other than a few blooms lost certain colors.
With increased application I will probably increase the dose.
It was also suggested to me to use another pesticide when not using Avid called  Talstar P.   Something about the 2 pesticides work good together when using each one on and off.

Kyle

 

[Cindy]

I don't recommend using Avid at a rate of more than 1 teaspoon per gallon of spray. For years I used it effectively at 1/4 teaspoon poor gallon but the mites seem to be getting more resistant so I increased to 1/2 tsp per gallon. What really helps is to add horticultural oil to the Avid and spray them both together. It increases the effectiveness quite a lot and does not cost much and you don't risk phytotoxicity from too high a rate of Avid.

For thrips, rotating Avid with Acephate (cheap and available online) as needed works very well.

[Jim]

Cindy, after reading this I am going to take your advice and start adding Hort. oil with my AVID.

When using Avid I am really careful about spraying when there is little wind which of coarse is in the morning. If I add oil might leaves get burned after a day of harsh sunlight?

Thank you.