Bing Cheah

Just chiming in here that I’m a homesteader/farmer who also feels the same pain. It’s true for people who say they want to work in permaculture, through to electricians and handymen. Younger folks seem to be the most chronically bad at this.

From my experience, I’ve found that more mature folks (above 40) are more reliable, and more likely to know when they don’t want to do the job and say no, and to follow through when they say yes. And recent immigrants are more willing to show up and do an honest day’s work. They are building their American dream, and willing to put in the sweat to do so. I’m an immigrant myself, and done well enough that I can now own land and give the homesteading thing a real try.

Also, I pray. For the divine to help me find/attract the right people to support us in building our dreams. It does seem to help. And I am always grateful to the folks who do show up. I keep in my heart that someone who comes to help me put up fences or run an electric cable to the yurt is actively helping me live my dreams. They may not understand it that way, but I do, because it’s true.

Update on this....

Results inconclusive, but worth further study next time I get a round of caterpillars. Here's what I did and what I observed:

Trees infested by spongy moth caterpillars (small black hairy ones):
A - 2 x Apple tree in tree tube, ~5-6ft tall
B - 1 x Apple tree in tree tube, ~5-6ft tall
C - 3 x Apple tree in tree cage (no tube), 5-6 ft tall
D - 2 x newly planted Saskatoon bushes
E - 2 x newly planted Saskatoon bushes

Treatment 1 - Applied on A, C, D, E on Day 1
Treatment 2 - Applied on A, C, D on Day 2
Treatment 3 - Applied on all plants at the end of Day 3

Treatment 1 description:
1 gal water
3 TBSP Apple cider vinegar
4 TBSP molasses
3 tsp castille soap
Sprayed 3 gallons of this mix on trees thoroughly, top and bottom of leaves.

Treatment 2 description:
1 gal water
NO vinegar
8 TBSP molasses
3 tsp castille soap
Sprayed 3 gallons of this mix on trees thoroughly, top and bottom of leaves.

Treatment 3 description:
Plain water, sprayed at high speed with backpack sprayer to mechanically remove caterpillars from leaves

Observations:
BEFORE treatment:
-Bad caterpillar infestation on all plants. Caterpillars seemed reasonably active. Not all were actively eating leaves, but most were wriggling around and a significant number were clearly munching

24 hours after Treatment 1
-I noticed the caterpillars on sprayed apple trees A and C were more sluggish, didn't really look active. There were some that were actively munching on leaves, but most were just hanging out on the tree and seemed slow-moving. By contrast, the caterpillars on unsprayed tree B were more active and many were actively munching on leaves.
-Also, there were noticeably fewer caterpillars on trees C (the ones in tree cage), and I think slightly fewer on A (sprayed, in tube), but similar number of caterpillars on B (unsprayed in tube).
-Not much discernible difference on the Saskatoon bushes between sprayed and unsprayed - all the caterpillars looked kind of sluggish.
-However, I did notice a wasp munching on one of the sprayed caterpillars.
-I thought this was encouraging, so I proceeded with Treatment 2 immediately after making these observations

24 hours after Treatment 2 (NO Vinegar in this treatment)
-All caterpillars on all plants were noticeably more active than the previous day
-It seemed that the number of caterpillars was further reduced by a little bit on trees C (in tree cage)
-Discouraged by this, and needing to leave for 4 days, I administered Treatment 3 on all plants (plain water, sprayed from my backpack sprayer at high enough pressure to knock the caterpillars off the leaves)

4 days after Treatments
-I came back after 4 days and noticed some caterpillars were back on all trees, but much less than when we started and meaningfully less than the number before Treatment 3 (water spray).
-The caterpillars were bigger, and looked healthy and moderately active
-I noticed there were much fewer on trees C (cage) vs. A & B (tubes)
-So, since I had just finished putting up my deer fence, I decided to remove the tree tubes from all the apple trees. As I did so, I noticed that the lower leaves that were inside the tree tubes were much less caterpillar-infested than the ones on the upper leaves sticking out of the tree tube.
-I administered another water spray to knock caterpillars off, and called it a close of the experiment for now.


Emerging thoughts and hypotheses to test in future caterpillar attacks:
1. Wasps are my friend in the orchard. I want to encourage them to hunt here! I do have a lot of wasps nesting and living near my house, but they haven't quite fully made it out to the orchard yet. I guess time will sort that out.
2. The spray with a small amount of vinegar seemed much more effective than the spray with no vinegar. I want to test this more, but am a bit concerned about too much vinegar being bad for the plants
3. It seems that being in a tree tube somehow contributed to more caterpillars staying / coming back. I'm not sure why that is yet. I have guesses/ideas, but this is something to test out in future.
4. The molasses itself didn't seem to do much.


Questions for Permies:
1. Do you have experience with what is the concentration of vinegar (and what kind of vinegar) is non-toxic to plants, but toxic to caterpillars/pest insects?
2. Does this also have a negative effect on predator insects that are NOT directly sprayed (like wasps), or other beneficial insects like bees?
3. Does anyone have similar or contradictory experience with using molasses to control caterpillars / pest insects? Please share your experience!

Hi Travis!

I’m planning to start incorporating poultry into my food forest too, and am particularly interested in geese for weeding/trampling.

Can you describe what your results have been with that and using these mobile enclosures (vs before when they were roaming freely)? And roughly what your density of geese in an area is, and how often you have to move them?

Another thing I’m curious about is under this type of system, how much feed do you still need to provide vs what they get from forage?

Thank you!
-Bing

Bethel, NY (USA)

Update: Since I have some molasses on hand, I decided to try it on a few plants that are heavily infested with caterpillars. Will see how the results unfold over the next few days.

Still curious to hear others’ experience with this method.

What works best for you depends on your context and goals. Eg if you are setting up a Mark Shepard style semi-wild food forest by mass planting of hundreds of trees grown from seed with diverse genetics, deliberately putting in 3-5x more trees than you plan to end up with after 10 years, then under that approach you very likely want to do nothing; for all the reasons some folks here mentioned (getting predator population balance quickly, etc) and more.

But if you are putting in a dozen carefully selected fruit trees of specific cultivars, that you spent a lot of money on, chosen to be able to pollinate each other, such that every single tree in your system is precious… then “do nothing” has a high risk of leading to a very disappointing and frustrating result.


For the section of my land where my goal is closer to that second scenario, I take an incremental approach… eg I might blast them off with a hose to give the plant a reprieve. But I won’t use any chemicals or “organic” remedies to nuke them off. And I’d watch the situation closely, because even in that “every tree is precious” scenario I still want to allow the natural balance of predators to come in.
But to keep the plants alive until it does, I’ll do things like buy and release ladybug larvae, spray rosemary and dust diatomaceous earth on the bases of plants where ants are defending the aphids, and hose caterpillars off the plants… for the first couple of years, until things find their balance.

I’d like to know if anyone here has tried using a molasses solution to control caterpillars, and what were your results?

Caterpillars are killing my newly planted fruit and berry trees & shrubs. I’d rather not buy BT products if I can help it. Many internet sources say a mixture of 1 TBSP molasses + 1 tsp dish soap in 1 litre of water will work. Seems almost too good to be true?

Has anyone tried it? What formula did you use? Did it work?

Thank you!
-Bing

Paul,

I don’t post a lot on this forum, but I greatly appreciate the work you do, and the community you’ve fostered here.

I myself am now 6.5 years post my initial cancer diagnosis. I did have a surgery, and embarked on a wide-ranging exploration which turned into a life-transforming adventure of healing & wholing. It’s been full of ups and downs. It’s been working for me - there’s been no tumors at all in the scans since the initial surgery. And I am healthier and more whole as a person than before.

It seems that you have found a good path for yourself, well supported by this community.  I wish you full healing & wholing in this process.

If you would ever like to chat, swap war stories, or triangulate methods with someone who’s also been in the same trenches, message me and I’d be more than happy to connect.

-Bing Cheah
Wildsong Gaian Sanctuary

I’m in New York state, so we get a lot of rainfall.

Having put in several thousand linear feet of swales  and spillways just before the edge of a hurricane hit… I’d say be very judicious about timing when you put your swales in! You can’t predict Nature, but you want to do your best to avoid a period where heavy rains could wash out your berms / blow out the spillways before they grass over.

And if I had the use of a sod cutter; I would try to save the sod to the side and place it on top of the berm to try to secure it as soon as possible.

Cristobal - have you tried eating the leaves of the Chinese Pistache?

I happened across a pistacia chinensis tree on the street while visiting California the other day and smelled its leaves. What a delicious aroma!

Internet searches turned up mostly lack of information, as usual.

Anyone here have experience with these trees, specifically:

1. Use of leaves as vegetable for humans and/or livestock?

2. Use of drupes / seeds as food for livestock or humans?

3. What’s the coldest climate you have seen these successfully growing in? I’m in USDA zone 5. Some Internet sources say pistacia chinensis grows down to zone 6, but I’m wondering if anyone knows of plants growing in Zone 5. After all, there are Iranian pistachios growing well in zone 6…


Edit: edited above to be clearer about where I came across the tree (not in my home zone, unfortunately).