Best Wishes During the Holidays

I've been using 409 and Isopropyl alcohol for years. Denatured alchol is a faster kill. People say "Don't use it! period". I've tried it since I'm and incurable "Try what they say not to do and see what happens". If the plant is in poor shape from disease or insects you can probably get it to recover if it's worth it to you. Otherwise toss it and don't worry about the insects. Wear gloves when using this especially if you're going to do a bunch. Denatured alcohol is more toxic to man or beast. It's 95% dtinking alcohol and 5% wood alcohol which is really toxic. If you wear gloves, don't inhale for periods of time and don't drink it I really don't see much of a problem. Plants don't seem to object. If you use isopropyl (least toxic of the common alcohols) go for the 70% in the drug store or big box store. It might cost a speck more but the kill rate is better for the buck. I mix 1/2 spray bottle of 409 (somewhere around 20 oz I think, I's have to check) with

I was surprised to find out that denatured alcohol has methanol in it. Until now, I had always believed denatured alcohol was ethanol with a bitter compound in it so it couldn't be consumed. So I looked it up and chose to read the Wikipedia article on denatured alcohol. Of course you are right. Methanol is one of the common ways to make it. Here's the funny part. You know how Wikipedia often has links to other web sites at the bottom? One of the links was about mealybugs. I figured I would read that and see what it said about killing mealybugs with denatured alcohol. Sure enough, it was an article that included non toxic ways of killing mealybugs but I couldn't spot the word alcohol anywhere on the whole page.

Steve

v_coerulea wrote: