I am just wandering whether I can kill them with household bleach like Clorox and what will it do to the earth? I am thinking of using it to treat the ground that is having this problem, I have tried a few method and they are not effective. So if you had tried using household bleach I would like to know what is the result like Thank you in advance for your comments
Nema burrow too deep for a complete kill no matter what you use. I till, use a nematicide and really only stave them off long enough to let veggies have a "window" of time to produce. Fortunately they do not move far. Killing them when it is warm is easier, because their egg is very tough, but they reproduce around every 20 days when it is hot. 90 when it is cold. To interrupt that cycle really reduces future populations.
Thanks Dirtmechanic, I'm using boiling hot water and leaving the affected area bare for at least 2 months before planting in the area again and they are still there. Mart, both in container and ground. This is my first experience in a container, maybe I used the earth from the infected ground and also this is the first time I planted cucumber in container.
I do not think that bleach will do a thing. they are not bacteria they are nematodes. I don't know that soap would do anything but that would be more effective than bleach I would think but you are killing everything insect-wise living with soap. mexican marigolds are supposed to suppress nematodes or you could look for a product that will kill nematodes specifically. you may have to order it and have it shipped? they also love sandy soil do it you can add a lot of compost and humus that would help.
A good point about compost. It turns out that fungi will quite literally eat nematodes. There are videos of the process on youtube. Its Its like mold spreading through bread but the result is a dead nema. I do not know which fungi are the most agressive, but my experience and the internet comments all point to this general idea of a fungal environment being more procective. One method of control is fungally oriented compost tea, arrived at by incorporating more protien instead of sugar into the brew. The source is important though. Corn meal on the ground is another way to attract certain protective fungi like trichoderma, but I have not read enough to link tricho to eating nema though its a hunger booger and eats a lot of other pathogenic biology.
Thanks Carolyn. I have no intention to use nematicides as they are not easily available here and I do not like to use pesticides. At the moment it is still manageable. I guess I'll stick to my current treatment of boiling water and compost. Dirtmechanic I'll do a trial and do some composting in the infected area after I pulled out the plant, I'll also do a boiling water treatment before I start composting in that area. Thanks Dirtmechanic.
try using cornmeal mixed in with the soil ! it has beneficial properties and may eliminate the nematodes ! its cheap and worth a try ! you can also put soil in a black plastic trash bag sealed and lay it in the sun to solarize it before planting !
Not all nematodes are bad for healthy soil and healthy plants. Root knot gives a whole population a bad name. https://web.extension.illinois.edu/soil/SoilBiology/nematodes.htm Nematacides kill off all the good nematodes that are building up the soil and feeding your plants.
