Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi,
For those of you who are not members of the NVS then you will have missed the article on pest and disease control by John Trim in their latest edition of Simply Vegetables. He says to take the cream off the top of non-homogenised milk (pasteurised will not do)with a large syringe and transfer to a small sprayer. Give a really good shake and spray the plants lightly as atomisede as possible. It is apparently 'brilliant' against cucumber mildew and is also 'super effective' against white fly on brassicas. Without getting too technical the active ingredient is the lactoperoxidase enzyme in the milk, when this comes into contact with the white fly it litterally dissolves them. Must be worth a try though where to find non- homogensied milk will be the biggest challenge since I thought all milk was now homgenised ! May need to chat up the dairyman.

Sounds as though that is well worth trying.
If I could find non-h milk though I would much prefer the top of the bottle on my cornflakes!

John

I'm lucky there, my brother in law brings me some milk fresh from the cow, each saturday night.

Now all i need in some whitefly to try it on, troubles i have.

Hi Hilary,
I don't know if you are are getting mixed up with homogenization and Pasteurization which are two entirely different processes.
The milk that I get is not homogenized but now by law (I think) milk must be pasteurized so difficulties may arise.
Apart from those small details you posting is very interesting.
Some time back the spraying of milk, with few details, was mentioned on this forum, with regards to the mildew associated with Cucumbers. I am always interested in simple remedies and especially remedies to do with White Fly which is an awful pest and very difficult to eradicate.
Is it possible to post John Trims article in full. Only if you can swipe it copy and paste it though.
JB.

Hi JB,
Am i right in thinking that most milk sold has to be pasteurised (heated) but homogenisation is to do with the breaking up of the fat globules to give a longer shelf life, uniformity etc which supermarkets love hence my comment on finding a good source. I believe that Waitrose organic whole milk is not homogenised but will be pasteurised, a number of small dairies which supply organic don't homogenise - look for the cream on the top! I am assuming for the enzyme to work is has to be 'live'.
Sorry cannot help with producing the whole article but I did give most of it.
Hilary

Thank you so much for the speedy reply Hilary. My milk is not homogenized and comes from Ceobury Mortimer in Shropshire.
You are right that Homogenizing is breaking up the fat globules into minute particles and this is done by passing the milk through the eye of a needle kind of process. So it is not possible to get the cream off the top because it is evenly distributed through the milk.
JB.

I would think that the problem is in the pasteurisation process. This involves heating milk to a high temperature for a short while and my guess is that this might denature the lactoperoxidase enzyme.

John

Hi John,
You may well be right.
I can get milk direct from the cow here, if needed, by just calling on my neighbour who still hand milks her cows. I was actually thinking of people who probably cannot get raw milk. This was why I queried the pasteurizing bit with Hilary.
JB.

Hi there. All my sprouts were ruined by this pest, so a remedy would be very welcome. Just one thing though, and please excuse my ignorance, are there any risks associated with using 'raw' milk ?

Cheers...Freddy.

Here's an idea to banish white fly - and many other small flying pests. It's particularly helpful to those who are lactose-intolerant. I've successfully used a small portable vacuum cleaner to hoover up white fly and aphids from plants plus flying ants from the compost heap.

The method is organic and harmless... until one's spouse opens the vacuum cleaner.

John Yeoman wrote:Here's an idea to banish white fly - and many other small flying pests. It's particularly helpful to those who are lactose-intolerant. I've successfully used a small portable vacuum cleaner to hoover up white fly and aphids from plants plus flying ants from the compost heap.

The method is organic and harmless... until one's spouse opens the vacuum cleaner.

We've been down this road before

viewtopic.php?p=84502#p84502

Duh, sorry. I'm a newbie. I hadn't read that before. But did I mention that another idea is to spray hair lacquer over flying ants? They turn into delightful amber beads to enhance a charm bracelet

freddy wrote:Hi there. All my sprouts were ruined by this pest, so a remedy would be very welcome. Just one thing though, and please excuse my ignorance, are there any risks associated with using 'raw' milk ?

Cheers...Freddy.

Hi Freddy,

I'm curious - what actually happened to your sprouts?
My own sprouts always get whitefly, and this last autumn it was much worse than usual, but although the leaves of the plants looked very pretty awful, the sprouts themselves have been ok, as usual.
I don't know if I have just been really lucky, or if another pest might be (partly) responsible for your problem?

The Mouse wrote:Hi Freddy,

I'm curious - what actually happened to your sprouts?
My own sprouts always get whitefly, and this last autumn it was much worse than usual, but although the leaves of the plants looked very pretty awful, the sprouts themselves have been ok, as usual.
I don't know if I have just been really lucky, or if another pest might be (partly) responsible for your problem?

Hiya Mousey. My sprouts were growing great guns before the whitefly started in earnest. They were around 3ft tall, and all seemed well. Once the whitefly took over, the plants just seemed to stall, and the resulting sprouts are no bigger than marbles. Of course, it MIGHT be something else that has caused this, I can't be sure, but as I said, they seemed fine til the whitefly showed up.

Can anyone enlighten me as to the safety of using 'raw' milk ?

Cheers...Freddy.

freddy wrote:Can anyone enlighten me as to the safety of using 'raw' milk ?

Hi freddy

If nobody else is going to reply, here are my thoughts.

I presume by "raw" you mean unpasteurised. Assuming you can get unpasteurised milk (not easy), I can't imagine any safety issues involved in spraying on brassicas. A great deal of the cheese I eat is made with unpasteurised milk and the usual advice is "not for pregnant women, very young children and people with weak immune systems". I suspect you don't fall into any of the above categories, and you are not drinking the milk.

Whether the stuff works against whitefly I have no idea (I have no whitefly either - smug!), but you could safely give it a try.

Just thought of a problem - don't feed the sprouts to vegans

Alan