I tried milky spore a year ago in a desperate attempt to clear my lawn of destructive moles. I purchases the Milky Spore from
I was a little skeptical at first but it seems to have worked.
Stop the battle yearly battle -- this stuff will work for 15 years.
Stealth spamming is dishonest. This means YOU, sirrah, are dishonest. Therefore nothing can be believed about your company or its products. If it worked against moles you'd be able to give citations of independent horticultural field studies instead of posting major fibs about buying a product you were at first skeptical about, when in reality just spamming for a company you own.
Without the field studies to show your product, used for mole control, is anything more than a worthless scam, there's no reason to believe you over the extant studies that show milky spore disease is not realistically recommended for mole con troll.
The only thing we really know about you that is absolutely certain is you're dishonest. So it would not be too surprising to find out that milky spore bacterium can be a biological control for Japanese beetle larvae and a few other closely related grubs, but used for any other purpose is dubious at best, & completely wasted effort if there are no targetable grubs in the first place. IF there were targetable grubs, IF one had a type of mole that ate primarily grubs instead of fifty different kinds of insects & mostly earthworms, then MAYBE lowering the grub population would discourage the occasional mole, but probably it would not. There are too many other food items that remain for the happy mole.
In the main selling it as mole control is as crooked as stealth spam. Milky spore neither kills nor repels moles. If milky spore disease can be introduced to a large enough area, it will after several years reduce the population of grubs, which moles love to eat. Usually this means they just eat a higher percentage of earthworms & baby slugs & thousands of types of insects, but very rarely a grub-loving mole might just go hunt grubs elsewhere. But just as often it means the busy mole makes its tunnels more elaborate because it needs a larger hunting area to find more worms & grubs. This means that very often the presence of milky spore disease in the soil causes a resident mole to become MORE industrious tearing up a yard or garden.
Townsends moles & most west coast moles eat predominantly worms, with some slugs & grubs thrown in, and would not be concerned to lose grubs from its diet. The most common east coast mole eats a much higher percentage of grubs & would be a little more unhappy if the grub population declined. For control of the eastern mole, then, introducing milky spore disease into a very extensive area MIGHT cause a mole to move on to some place where there are more grubs to be found, though studies to date have failed to find this scenario promising. At best it takes years to achieve, and according to the leaflet on the subject distributed by Pensylvania State University's agricultural extension, it will not effect moles at all unless an entire neighborhood undertakes multiple methods of mole control, since a single mole usually hunts through many yards & even if grub populations decline in one of the yards, the mole will still keep its tunnels active getting to the properities on all sides of a grubless little bit of ground.
Virtually all extant studies indicate milky spore disease has minimal impact on moles though it can be used as part of a broader attack, on the premise that it MIGHT be possible that SOME moles will move on if they happen to like grubs way better than the scores of other food items that remain, so go grub-hunting elsewhere.
Here's an expert opinion from Jim Parkhurst, extension wildlife agent at Virginia Tech University: "White milky spore, a naturally-occurring fungus now available in commercial form, has been promoted as a means to help reduce the number of grubs and somewhat limit the mole's food supply. However, the fungus does not seem to survive well in cold climates, so it may not persist through the winter months. Additionally, even where milky spore is present, it is effective only on certain insects. Thus other natural food items are still available."
Any claim to the contrary must be substantiated with independent research such as from university horticultural stations, which have to date not found milky spore disease a good line of offense against moles.
The best study on milky spore disease as a control for Japanese beetles was done by Michigan State University, which found that it takes four years to be effective against grubs, but thereafter the bacillus can live in the soil for up to 20 years controlling scarab-family beetles (and nothing else). With a great deal of patience therefore it can be a most useful organic method of controlling Japanese beetles. The Michigan study also concluded that where milky spore disease for mole control is concerned, "Effectiveness is questionable."
Many suppliers like to cite the Michigan study, but rarely mention how extremely long it takes to become effective against Japanese beetles, and how unlikely it is to have any actual effect on moles. Any vendor that says it will get rid of skunks and moles (as many allege) should not be trusted in anything else they say either.
If someone wants to try it for Japanese beetle larvae (whether or not there is a distant off-chance that four years later moles will be unhappy that there are fewer beetle larvae about), the choice is commendable, because certainly less harmful to the environment than are polluting chemical pesticides. But the stuff is available cheaply from hundreds of honest vendors, and no one needs to support stealth spammers. We can only assume liars of that ilk will be have other underhanded policies to match, so will not serve the consumers or our gardens to any great advantage.
-paghat the ratgirl
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The Ohio State Extention Agency says that milky spore has not been proven to be effective in Ohio. Furthermore, moles eat eathworms, so getting reid of the grubs is no guarentee of gitting rid of the moles..
Moles are not destructive. Spammers are destructive.
While the usefullness od Milky Spore is dubious at best, I have a solution to my mole problem, along with other varmints.
Two young cats. Wednesday they left me a present of two moles and a mouse in the driveway. And I have not seen any rabbits in a year. Hopefully the rabbits just moved on from our yard, they were cute, after all.
It's kinda funny to see how they regard the possum and racoon, aloof, but attentive.
bk
Travis wrote:
I rather like moles but last year we had one aggressive mole who had a terrible fondness for the pulpit garden, undermined the whole area. So when a cat finally got that bugger I wasn't upset. As it turned out though, there was a beetle larvae infestation which I'm now trying to treat with bacillus, but that can take a while, and in the meantime quite a few things are getting nibbled on. The mole's fixation on that particular garden turns out to have been an early warning, and the mole was probably doing that garden a favor.
-paghat the ratgirl
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