Episode 162: Dips, Sprays, & Phytotoxicity: Mastering Oils in Cannabis Cultivation with Julie Graesch

[music] Welcome to the Cannabis Cultivation and Science Podcast. I'm your host, Tad Hussey of Kiss Organics. This is the podcast where we discuss the cutting edge of growing from a science-based perspective and draw on top experts from around the industry to share their wisdom and knowledge. Just a friendly reminder to folks who enjoy the podcast content and want to support the podcast, we have a Patreon where we do a book club, hangouts, and share private content that I don't share on social media. With Patreon, you also get access to a private Discord channel and I upload the raw podcast interviews immediately. Sometimes it can be weeks prior to the public release. We also offer a wide range of products ranging from living soils, beneficial insects, organic fertilizers, and professional consulting on our Kiss Organics website. Now my guest this week is a returning guest, Julie Grasch works for Bioworks as a Technical Services Manager. Julie has 18 years of experience as a Biological Scientist, Practiced in Laboratory, Greenhouse, and Field Research as well as Technical Service Support for the Integrated Pest Management Industry. She has been with Bioworks for over five years and had previously held positions at BASF, Mecker Underwood and Iowa State University. Now onto the show. Hey Julie, welcome back to the show. Thanks Tad, it's great to be here. Yeah, I'm so glad we got to connect again and I'm really excited today to learn all about oils. And I thought we could start off this conversation with just a really simple question, which is why would I want to use an oil? And then the follow up to that is like, why can't I just go use canola oil or olive oil out of my kitchen? What are those differences and what are the oils really doing for my plants? Great questions. So why would you use an oil over something else? Oils, whether that is a Horticultural Mineral Oil or a Essential Oil Product, have the mode of action is there's multiple mode of action. But the main mode of action with say a Horticultural Mineral Oil is suffocation. And when we're talking about these physical modes of action, we are also talking about or can talk about things like resistance. And if you're using other chemical products, you can build a resistance to those products because you have with resistance that you typically have the lock in key and over time or through misuse of that product that that key no longer fits in the lock and so the product doesn't work or it doesn't work as well. So you have to use higher rates. So when it's so forth. So if you have an insect or a mite that has built up resistance to one or more products, you can use something that has a physical mode of action like a Horticultural Mineral Oil or an Essential Oil Base product that will take out an insect or a mite regardless of if that has resistance to one or more chemistries because you are suffocating it. And so it's very difficult to become resistant to things that are physically killing you like suffocation. Now I will also say that there are other modes of action that are acting on insect and mite populations as well as disease populations when applying these and that can be and it's going to depend of course on the particular product on the essential oils potentially that are in there on what mode of actions are happening and it can also depend on the pest. So sometimes some pests will have some mode of actions acting on them and not others. So some other examples aside from just suffocation would be desiccation. So you're removing some of those components from the exoskeleton of the insect which is going to cause it to lose moisture and that loss of moisture will kill them. So desiccation or cuticle disruption. And also elicit some behavioral effects like repellency or anti-feetant or anti-ovo position. Again, just kind of depending on the various oil products and what you're going to see there. Now, those are typically the types of mode of actions that we're going to see with the horticultural trominer oil. When we start talking about the 25b essential oil based products, you can also have other modes of action. Similar to what we already talked about, you can have the suffocation, desiccation, repellency, anti-feetant, anti-ovo position. But you can also have more of that lock and key mechanism as well where something like an octopamine receptor gets triggered and that causes paralysis with, say, a peppermint or clove oil can have that response. Now that does depend on the insect. We see with our 25b product, Epishealed, that's a peppermint and clove. And we see paralysis with things like two-spotted spider mites where you apply it and they immediately stop moving and they don't move again. But remember, so yes, you can develop resistance to something that has that more lock and key mechanism. But it's not just that that's acting. You also have the desiccation and the suffocation that's also acting upon those insects. So when you have multiple modes of action acting on a pest that you're applying this to control, that pest, those multiple modes of action are all working together to kill that insect or mite. So, I just want to jump in really quickly. I think that was a great reminder that you mentioned that the mode of action being suffocation is something that the insect, for example, can't really develop a resistance to. Whereas these other pesticide products that may have a different mode of action, maybe it's a neural disruptor or something like that. If we apply them at a lower than label rate, for instance, we may be setting ourselves up for a problem down the road because the insect can develop resistance to that. Or even at label rate, let's say, if we don't kill all of that two-spotted spider mites population, which is very hard to do when you're spraying in general, those new insects become like super bugs in the sense that they could develop a resistance to that, which is why we typically will use more than one chemistry or more than one mode of action as a way of trying to really comprehensively attack a pest issue on a crop or in a garden. And one of the things Suzanne always says is that bugs can't develop resistance to being eaten, which is why she loves beneficial insects. But the same could be said about suffocation than it sounds like too. Absolutely. Yes, 100%. Great. So, yeah, so why can't I just go in my cupboard and grab some olive oil or canola oil, for example, or even make my own peppermint oil using products around my house or essential oils, like you mentioned? What's the significance around buying a horticultural product? Question. So, there are a number of DIY formulations out there where you're combining things like niche soap or olive oils or even an alcohol. And yes, those can help control. For if you just have a couple of plants in your home office or your house, sometimes those are good enough. And they can be effective. So getting to your question of why you would want to choose a formulated product would be whether you are large or a small grower. They have been formulated for a reason. So one drawback to applying these DIY things is how much do you put into that, that water? And when you apply it, and that may cause phytotoxicity to occur because they're really not potentially designed to be applied to the plant. Or they may not spread very well. So it's not going to necessarily do what you would expect if you were say using something that had been formulated. Things that so when developing a product, let's say a horticultural mineral oil, and if you look at the label, most horticultural oils are going to be somewhere between 80 to 98% oil. And it may look like your typical oil or in the case of something that is an 80% like soft oil, it's not going to look like an oil, it's going to actually look a little bit more like yogurt. So there are some reasons for those differences in these different formulations. But what you're getting with these formulated products is you have things like maybe emulsifiers or or spreading agents. They have been chosen at a particular molecular weight of the oil to have that ideal suffocation without causing phytotoxicity. So there's a very specific-- window of these horticultural oils that you kind of have to be in. So you're getting the benefit of killing that pest, but not getting some of these other components that may be in the oil that are going to cause more phytotoxicity. So by choosing a formulated product, it's going to tell you what rate you're going to want to use it at. You can have a rate range as well. It's going to tell you how much water you're going to need and how much you're going to need to apply over a specific area. It's going to tell you what pests it's going to kill and things to not do as well or best practices with oils. So for instance, you want to make sure that the plant gets dry as soon as possible because the longer a plant stays wet that has an oil based formulation on it. You run the risk of starting to degrade the plant's wax executable, which will then cause that phytotoxicity. So if you are able to flash off that water quickly, then your risk of phytotoxicity significantly goes down. So all of these things are sort of going to be incorporated into the label telling you about, you know, what rates to use, what volumes to use, what to do and what not to do. We're you're not going to get that with your DIY products, things that you can make up and you just don't know if that's going to work either and you might get lucky and it might work great, but you might kill your plant too. And it might not do anything. And so now you have a higher population of pests. So there's a number, I think of reasons why the formulated products are specifically designed to incorporate these various active and interingredients that is the product that will then work very well against the pests that are on the label. Now there's going to be some variance to on formulated products in terms of the amount of research and data that's been collected across a variety of crops to like I happen to just know that, you know, bio work specifically as a ton of research on stuff oil, but then there's other products out there that I've seen that maybe people sell and they spread by word of mouth that may not have the same level of research to support their efficacy. Can you just touch on that a little bit? Yeah, so you, if you have an EPA registered product, this horticulture, I'm going to oil, if you are claiming pest control, you will likely need to have that product registered with the EPA. In order to register a product with the EPA, you do need to have a certain amount of research that goes with that package to the EPA that says we've done our due diligence, we've made this formulation and here is the data to support the control of the pest or pests that are on that label. So there does have to be some research that goes into having an EPA registered product. Some of that research can be available to people, whether that's the researcher or, you know, consultants or growers, but some of that can also stay proprietary within the company. Or, or, you know, just kind of be associated with the EPA registration package. And so you might not never, you might not ever see that data. Or, and then there are other situations where, you know, a lot of that data is made public. Sometimes you might just not know where to go to find that data because sometimes data can be very difficult to get or you're going to have to pay to get that data. So I think there is some of it is just knowing where to go or who to go to in order to get that information. Some products will, however, not have as much data associated with them. And there's a number of reasons why that may or may not be. Sometimes companies like BioWorks, we always strive to look to see what other pests can this potentially control or what other diseases. And so you would only know if it is going to control, for instance, powdery mildew is on the stuff oil label for for management of that disease. But what if we didn't know if it controlled betrides? So the only way to know that is to run trials. And then by running those trials. And let's say we see great control of betrides using the horticultural mineral oil. We could then take that data to the EPA and say we want to make a label update and then get betrides to the label as an example. So in which case we also might make that data available to the grower. Look, this is the research that we've conducted by using stuff oil at this rate for this pest in these conditions. This is what you may expect in terms of control of that particular insect or disease. So the grower once you have a label with with pest on that label, that might be, you know, good enough. And so they, you know, some companies may not do anything more than what it took to get it into the EPA. So the next side to that would be if you are using a product that's not EPA registered in which case you wouldn't necessarily have the data package that was required in order to register that product. And it might be a great product and it might do exactly what it is saying that it's going to do, but it might not either. So I think that's just kind of a word of caution is that if you are interested in using a product that's not EPA registered to ask that company what data do you have to support the label claims. So you know, if it is not EPA or fifth for a registered, you know, you, if you're making claims of control, it's there's another potential red flag because it has to be EPA registered if you're making claims or even with, you know, to a certain extent also with Thifra. Thifra is something that I've thrown around a little bit. And in addition to the horticultural trauma in our oils, you also have this other category of what I previously referred to as essential oil based products. And that can be in the form of a 25 B product and that is registered that is through fifth Ra so the fungicide redenticide insecticide redenticide act and what a 25 B product is is so you have your EPA registered products we've already kind of covered that the EPA has lists of active and inert ingredients that can go into the formulation of a pesticide product or a biopesticide product. And the list list number one are your very toxic components list two are moderately toxic components list three is slightly toxic and then you have this list four that are generally considered safe and inert and active ingredients. So these are typically where we're going to see our essential oils, citric acid, canola oil, soybean oil, all of these these components that we also consume or put on our, you know, bodies components and lotions and things. And these things can also be insecticidal or fungicide or even bacterial side when formulated into a product. So if you take a product that is that you generate from those ingredients on that list for that are generally considered safe, the EPA does not require you to register it with them because exposure and risk is so much less than many of the things that they register. It is then it then can go into the 25 B program and with the 25 B program and kind of getting back to your question about the data that is required. So with a 25 B you can have a product label just like and it can even look like an EPA registered product. It can make claims on control of insects and diseases depending on, you know, the various components that they're putting it in there. And for a lot of companies that develop these 25 B products, a lot of research goes into the generation of that product during formulation and then during the evaluation if that formulation, what what it is going to kill what it's not going to kill and kind of, you know, this the scope. So you can have a data package with these with these 25 Bs so even though you're not registered through the EPA, you do still need to have state registrations of the 20 B products. So it's not just, you know, free rain, they still have to be registered with the state. Some states don't require data, but there are a number of states that do require data. So if you want to register your to be product with these various states, I think Illinois is one of those states that require data in order to back up the claims you're making on that 25 B. And so if you don't have the data to support it, they will not allow you to register the 25 B in their state. Again, not every state is like that. There is a handful that require data and more and more states may go to, you know, we require data in order to support your product before we register it. in which case. you just wouldn't get state registration there and you wouldn't be able to sell it within that state. So for the 25 Bs, you know, it's a little bit more of the wild wild west in that you may have some companies that have ample data to support their claims, but there may be others that don't have that data. Data is expensive to conduct. You can conduct it internally if you have a R&D lab with the capability of doing insect or disease trials, but you also want to conduct third-party research. Some states require third-party research and not just internal research. I just to ensure that you're not modifying the data in some way and I'm not saying that companies do or would do that, but it's always good to have that third-party data as well, just to confirm that what you're seeing in your laboratory during say screening of your product. Now you take it to a third-party and confirm what you see in your own R&D facility within the company. So typically, all of these things are going on and to do all of that research on multiple pests, that takes a lot of time and a lot of money. And so one reason that a company may not have as much data is maybe they're smaller and they don't have the pockets to be able to do extensive research on the generation of a new product. And again, that product might do exactly what the label or the company says it's going to do, but there has been some situations where they don't. And so it's always good to try new products and put it up against the pests or diseases that in your operation, because there can be differences in efficacy from operation to operation. The application equipment that you're using, the crops that you're growing. So with that, I think it's always good to evaluate these new products. Make sure that it is doing what it says it's going to do. And then once you do that evaluation, you can then choose to incorporate it into your facility or not based on that. But I don't think it is a bad idea. And in fact, I would say it's a good idea when evaluating a new product to also look to see if they have any information online about their product in terms of research or obviously, how much information is there for some of these products because I'm sure we've all experienced getting a product label, especially ones that aren't EPA registered and having sort of the bare bones and not knowing exactly how exact, what about this? What about that? And it's just not there. So just a few things to think about when evaluating all of these various horticultural mineral oils and essential oils. And there are a number of benefits and drawbacks to using mineral oils and essential oils. One of those being EPA registered products are almost always going to have a REI or a restricted entry interval. Whereas since with a B, it doesn't have that requirement. So the 25b's have the flexibility of a zero REI, which is, and of course, the safety of that product. You still, of course, want to have personal protective equipment, whether or not they have that on the label or if they have almost like a bare bones. You always want to make sure that you're protecting yourself, your eyes, your skin from exposure. Even if it is like a peppermint and clove, a canola, whatever oil, it's not necessarily going to hurt you, but it's always best to have safety first and ensure that you are protected. And I kind of went off on a, a little safety tangent there. But I want to go back just a moment and highlight some stuff. So and correct me if I summarize any of this wrong. But EPA registered products have to have efficacy data to show they actually kill the target pest, typically on a target crop to correct. You have to show that. So it is. Yes. Crop and insect specific. And even products like Neem oil are EPA registered as well. But there is this, I think it's grasped, nearly recognized as safe AS, I think is the term I've heard for these 25B products inputs that are safe and may or may not have the efficacy data. I did not realize certain states required efficacy data. So that was, that was new to me and that's really good to hear. But I do also, as you were telling me this, I was remembering a product called Guardian Mitespray and another one called Mighty Wash. These were products that were marketed to the cannabis industry specifically that contained other ingredients that were not on the label. And the only way we found out about them because people were like, wow, this product works really, really well. Was when people's crop failed or was tested. And so like I think Mighty Wash had pyrethrends in it, but they claimed it was this alkalinized water that was killing insects. So yes, do your due diligence, buyer beware. The majority of products I think on the market are accurately and safely marketed. But that's not to say that things can't slip through or that people might come onto the market. If something seems too good to be true, it might very well be too good to be true. And I will say that if it is, obviously, if it's EPA registered, you have to have the active ingredient disclosed. You don't have to disclose any of the inert ingredients. So just that those one or a couple of active, for the 25B products also are the fifre labeling, you have to have the active ingredients as inert ingredients. So those inert ingredients may be just saying like citric acid, it's not going to give you any concentrations or anything like that. It does a fifre labeled, you'll typically see some of the inert ingredients also listed. And so which is important kind of getting back to what you said a minute ago of these unintended ingredients. And so I'm not saying it hasn't happened or it doesn't happen. But I think fifre still tries to ensure that companies are being true to what they are putting into those products, especially since these will be going into a lot of food crops because of the safety of it and not just for the workers, but for the people who may be consuming those products. And so I just thought it was important to bring that difference up in that active and inert ingredients will be listed. But not everything such as the concentration will be displayed. So let's talk about how to evaluate an oil-based product. For me off the top of my head here, just as I'm making a mental list, the things I look for is is it a reputable company? Is there efficacy data to show that this works with the target pest that I'm dealing with, which has been properly identified, shout out to Suzanne. I always identify the pest before you start spraying something. I can't tell you how many times people have reached out to me because they had springtails, for example, in their soil, thinking that this was going to be a problem. And so they start panicking and trying to apply things to deal with it. I would want to know, like I said, efficacy data. I think for me, the formulation, I think, is something we should touch on. This idea is like, how do I get the highest level, like the highest efficacy in terms of mortality rates of the target insect while applying the least amount of product onto the leaf surface of my plant? I think that's where the formulation really comes into play. Because let's just say hypothetically, we have two products and they both contain peppermint and clove oil. There may be a lot of differences in the formulation that could make one product highly effective and the other one, like you mentioned, phytotoxicity before it could cause phytotoxicity or maybe poor mortality rates. So I think I just want to emphasize the importance of formulation into this whole process as well. What other things do you look for when evaluating a product to consider to use in your garden or in your operation? That's a great question. Kind of getting back to what you said about, let's say you had two products and both of them contain peppermint. Peppermint is well known to be a good product for management of arthropods, arthropods being both insects and mites. And so let's say you're evaluating two products that both have peppermint. So what I would look, one of the things that you would want to look for is the concentration of these components because if it is considered the active ingredient, even on a fifthrelabel, you will still see the concentration of that component on the fifthrelabel. So you might see peppermint at 10% on one product and peppermint at 2% on another product. And you may have other ingredients in the 2% formulation. So even though it might not be, say, listed as a active ingredient, you're also seeing maybe a sodium laurel sulfate, which is a soap and maybe a surfactant in there, some vegetable oils. And so those components are also going to go into management and kill of that pest. Because as we spoke earlier, you're from soaps and oils, you're getting desiccation and suffocation and these various motives with these other inert ingredients. But you're potentially going to have a little bit of a difference in efficacy based on the concentration of the-- that in this case, per-- peppermint oil. And again, some pests are going to be killed by that 2% from that one formulation just as good as that 10%. In which case, let's say that 2% formulation is less expensive than the 10%. And you know that through research that you've conducted on that particular product that it works great for me. And so that's what we use. However, there may be other insects that are not killed by the 2% peppermint product. It's not to say that it doesn't work, but it's just maybe not a high enough concentration to elicit the killing response or the repellency or whatever it is that's acting upon that insect. So definitely want to look at at concentration and trial these products to ensure that the pest is controlled. Additionally, I would also look at the things that are listed on that label. Is there like two things on the label or is there 20 things on the label? Just because there may be two things on the label doesn't necessarily mean it's not going to kill other things, but that is the research that they did on those two insects or mites. And so they know it's going to work very well against those two. Again, not to say that it won't work on other things, but that other product that has say 20 different things on there. Maybe has a little bit more research. Maybe it's been out on the market longer. And so, you know, it has had time to have more and more research and more and more pests and more and more use sites listed to that label. And so that would be a couple of things that I would look at is the concentration of these things. Concentration does matter depending on the pests that you are trying to target. Did you have a question? Yeah, I thought of two more things that I think are worth touching on, which are a multiplication and surfaction. So how well does the product mix with water to get an even application or spray of that across a given surface and then surfact it like how well is that product going to that oil going to stick to the surface of the leaf and be distributed evenly to get a better kill versus like giant drops of oil just landing randomly on a leaf surface, which may not hit the target insect. Did you want to add anything to that? Yeah, so that's a multiplication and surfactants. So these are formulation components. So these are some of those inerts that you can either see in the fifra or it's just in a fifra or 25b label, or in the EPA, it's just going to say inerts. So those are very, very common ingredients that are included in a pesticide or a biopesticide or a 25b product. And the things that you mention are extremely important because when we're dealing with oils and when we're dealing with essential oils that are very volatile, you may need that in order to prevent it from volatilizing very quickly. Or when you're mixing it in water, it just volatilizing again very quickly or mixing in water. And so when you have an emulsifier, it's basically taking those components and making sure everything is homogenous and in formulation. But when you put it into water, that emulsification can also help it go into solution a little easier. I mean, we've all kind of dealt with products that, you know, when you try to mix them in water, things don't go well. You know, they want to float, they want to, or maybe they'll sink to the bottom like a rock and it takes a long time to get them to, let's say dissolve or wet out. And so those are good formulation things to add to these products to make them go into solution easy. And so these are easy use things that are added to these pesticide and biopesticide formulations to make your life easier as a grower to quickly, easily mix, apply and not have to deal with these problems that you may have with ADIY product or something that doesn't have those components. Now the surfactant, as you mentioned, is also another important one. In not necessary, so a surfactant, if you were dealing with, say, a wetable powder formulation that can have some dustiness to it, a surfactant could be added to decrease the dustiness of that so that you get less of that kind of poofing up into the air and it's more, you know, you just don't, you don't have that dustiness. So surfactants can be added to prevent some of that. If we're talking about oil-based formulations where you're not going to have a dust factor, you would still want maybe that surfactant to help it spread on the plant at the time of application. So it's not added as the benefit of going into solution in this case, but after application and once you get to the plant. And a good example would be is if you have a really hairy plant, like an African violet or, you know, a tomato plant, R2 things that immediately come to my mind, cannabis plants are also, can be have a lot of trichomes and hairs. And or if you have something that has a really waxy leaf, you'll see a lot of water. If you just, let's say, just applied water, you'll see, bawling up of those water droplets and especially on something like a very waxy leaf. And those water droplets are just as likely to roll off. And if that's happening, if your pest is on the foliage and your water, your application just rolled to the soil or to the floor, obviously, that's a problem. And so coverage, the biggest failure of biopesticides and even some chemistries is poor coverage. So having a surfactant, whether that is a formulation component or an additional thing that you're adding to that tank mix to get the ideal coverage of that plant, is it incredibly important. You don't want bawling up of those water droplets. And on a hairy plant, you can also have bawling up. And so these surfactants, what they're doing is they're basically just breaking the water tension so that you, that hold kind of the water together into these water droplets are weakened by having the surfactants. And so when you put it onto a waxy leaf or a hairy leaf, you get that spread. You get that nice even spread. And and that's where that's, you know, that's really key. And the other thing to mention about surfactants and the importance, just because it's an oil doesn't mean that you're, it's going to have the ability to break that water tension. Some oils, depending on, you know, the makeup of that oil or essential oil, it may have a stronger ability to to break that water tension. And so you might not need it or it has the surfactant in the formulation. But some oils, you're just not going to have that. And so you're going to need to add potentially a wedding agent in order to get that that coverage. So once you get it out there and you get that nice even spread on the leaf also means that you're getting an even coverage on the insect as well. Because when we're talking about suffocation, you need to get that oil covering that insect and and ideally into those sphericals that are the breathing tubes of the insect and preventing them from the gas exchange and breathing. And so if you have a water droplet, if you've you've ever seen just a water droplet hit an insect, you know, insects can be hydrophobic, especially if they have waxy cuticles. Many of them do with some of them more than others like mealy bugs and aphids. But you almost see this, this protective almost air in between the water and the insect. And you know, that's that hydrophobic waxy cuticle that's that's somewhat protecting them. And so by having this surfactant, you can also prevent that protection from occurring on the insect because it's it can break that potentially break that waxy cuticle down. Again, that's going to be dependent on product on if it's able to break that waxy cuticle down or not. But it is an important factor if you are trying to target something like a mealy bug that has that waxy cuticle and and breaking that down. Another factor to consider when choosing products. But the surfactant can also be important when talking about vital toxicity of oil-based formulations. And so if you have a lot of water that your or application volume that you're putting out there, you're going to increase your humidity, how your humidity means you're going to have delays and drying. But if we consider, as I mentioned earlier, you know, having that that plant wet for a long period of time, two hours or more, your your risk of phytotoxicity is going to go up. So ideally, we want to get the plant dry within a two-hour period, ideally less. But by having a surfactant in there and having a nice thin layer, that is going to dry much faster than a thicker or a water droplet that has a lot of, you know, it's going to take a while to get to the center of that that water droplet as it as it desiccates. But this can can flash off relatively quickly. The benefits of surfactant are many, oftentimes they are formulated into it. But even even if you have a product that has formulated surfactants, sometimes it's not enough. It's still not enough for certain plants. So adding a little bit of a surfactant can get you that coverage and also better control of the pests or the diseases that you are targeting. Well, there's a lot to think about with oils and I appreciate you sharing all of this. You brought up, as we were talking about surfactants, I sort of had one final question that I wanted to ask you, which is, can I double up my applications? Are there things I can apply with the oils you mentioned to surfactant as an example of that? Can I apply any microbials or other products at the same time I'm applying an oil-based product as a way to just save on sprays, for example, or labor? Good question. So oils are good tank mix partners. And you, let's say, if you are doing a Bavaria Bastianna, one of the things that we have talked about in the past, if you can tank mix a soft oil and principle together in a tank mix and with principle WP, WP being a wetable powder, it doesn't have the oil-based component as some, there are some Bavaria-based products and metariseums out there, the Sectis Vellifer, M52, or two products that come to mind that are oil-based formulations. So you have some of that oil in there that is also going to give you a little bit of a suffocation factor. And really that we can lump that type of product into the conversation that we're having because it's still an oil-based formulation. Many or all of the things that we've talked about are still on the table when using oil-based formulations aside from ones that are specifically or to cultural mineral oils or essential oils. So let's say you have a wetable powder and you want to have, want to have a little bit more of a knockdown because let's say principle WP, again Bavaria Bastianna. So since this is a live organism, it's a fungus, it takes a few days to go through processes. So you don't have necessarily an immediate knockdown with a Bavaria. You'll see that starting to occur three to five, maybe more depending on environmental conditions later, days later. So if you were to say pear principle or Bavaria Bastianna that is a wetable powder with an oil-based formulation, then you also have the added benefit of having a knockdown effect of getting that suffocation and pests that are not killed by the suffocation of the oil may be moving around picking up those spores and then will be killed by those spores a few days later. So you're combining a multiple products to have a number of effects that are occurring simultaneously. And so wheels, whether it is essential or horticultural, are actually great tank mix partners. However, there are some products that when you read the label and will say specifically, do not mix this product with a horticultural mineral oil. So there are some things that you shouldn't take mix with. Sometimes horticultural mineral oils can also have negative interactions with things like sprayed sulfur. Burning sulfur doesn't seem to have as much of the phytotoxicity effects as doing a sprayed application or a dusted of a sulfur, but it's definitely something to be aware of and not to combine. Again, that's an example of do not apply horticultural mineral oil with a sulfur-based product. There are a few other ones, but generally speaking, they're play well with most other things and had efficacy that you might not get with your other tank mix partners. So, but I would mention that if you are combining with a microbial-based product, whether it is a bavaria or there are other microbial-based products out there, it is important to consider tank mix compatibility. Most oils are going to be compatible with the bavaria or maybe a metarysium, but I think there are going to be a few situations where the compatibility might not be there and that oil can suffocate the spore and kill that live organism in that other products. Look at compatibility information if compatibility is there when doing tank mixes with your biopesticides, especially if it's a living organism. And one thing to add that I forgot to kind of when we were talking about the prior subject with surfactants and phytotoxicity is one thing that that commonly comes up is suffocating the plant. And so the plant also has especially on the underside of the leaf. They have the the stomates that are transpiring. And so, again, it's going to depend on the oil-based product that you're using on how much of a risk it's going to be to suffocate the plant. So, if using the surfactants, you're less likely to have thicker layers potentially. Now, there are products that are like dormant oils that are much heavier and are used, say, in what are your ornamentals and when there's not a whole lot of foliage and you're killing things like, you know, mealie bug or scale that are on the bark of the plant. And so, you have less risk of phytotoxicity because there's not a whole lot of foliage there. And you're just sort of cleaning things up before the season really takes off. And there are other uses for dormant oils, but as an example, so if you are to use a dormant oil where you have that much, much thicker oil, again, it can be fantastic at killing things, but you're going to have a much thicker layer on your plant too if you are applying it to the foliage. And so, in which case you can potentially start to clog the plant's ability to transpire. In which case, you would start having phytotoxicity type symptoms from something like that. Another example would be if you were using some of the typical horticultural mineral oils and you were doing weekly or biweekly applications and you weren't applying anything else and you were just, you know, going back to back with an oil, you can start to build up that oil. And so, you know, it's always good to rotate your products. No one product is going to be, you know, the end all be it all for everything. And so, it's always good to to rotate products. And even if you see excellent control with something like a stuff oil, rotate it and, and, you know, so that when you come in with an application of the Vary Abasiana, you're going to start getting rid of some of that, some of those, those oils maybe that have built up. So, I just want to jump in. That's a really good point. I think it was a Dr. Michael Brownbridge, your colleague who was telling me how they were seeing in the field with thrips specifically with, I believe, scuffle oil. The thrips that were pupating inside the leaf, the scuffle oil was actually helping suffocate them a little bit better than say, epishield for that specific target pest in that specific stage of growth. Can you elaborate on that? I'm sure you know more about this. What I'm describing essentially. Did I say that correctly? Yes. Okay. So, fantastic question. And this also gets back to your earlier question about what sort of things am I looking for when I am evaluating these various products? Not all oils, whether that's essential or horticultural, are going to kill all life stages of the pest. Suffol oil, let's say, as an example, compared to epishield. Epishield, again, 25B, and it is a peppermint clove. And your use rates are 9 to 12 fluid ounces per 100 gallons versus suff oil that is 1 to 2 gallons per 100 gallons. So, you're applying much more oil with the suff oil product. So, suff oil is going to be able to kill all life stages, including the egg. In comparison to something like the epishield, which when we've done trial work, we did not see a heavy kill of the two-spotted spider-mite egg. But if you did a side-by-side with suff oil, those eggs would be killed because you have a higher concentration of oil. And I would say with your horticultural oils, one of your main motive actions is suffocation. Whereas with something like an epishield, the amount of oil that you're applying is much less formulation-wise, as well as rate-wise. And so, it's not relying on occasion as heavily because you're also relying more heavily on desiccation or triggering some of those things like octopamine receptors and causing paralysis. And so, looking to make sure that you understand what life stages of the pests that you're controlling will definitely be something that you'll want to consider. So, getting to your question about thrips. Vine line research and innovation center has done a couple of tests now, looking at various horticultural mineral oils, even though thrips, so if you look at the thrips life cycle, thrips will put their ova positive into plant tissue and lay their egg. And so, there's a little tiny bit of the egg that actually you know know the very top of the egg that sticks out. And so that the egg stage can be very, very difficult to control for thrips because they are protected by the plant. However, there still is, they still have to breathe. Eggs still have to breathe. So the research that they did, they found that products like scuffle oil applied either as a dip or as a spray can suffocate thrips eggs on the leaf tissue. You know, the importance of doing something like a dip when bringing new plant material into your greenhouses is important to, to, you might not see the adults, but the eggs are there and those will hatch. So the benefit of doing something like a scuffle oil dip or, you know, in the United States scuffle oil is only has two double E, which is a special use label in a few states for dipping. So in those states, they can dip scuffle oil in the United States. But in many of the US states, we don't have those two double E's. And so they would, you know, need to use something else that has a dip on the label. And I am not aware of other products. I'm sure there are other products that control, that can control thrips, life's, thrips eggs. There are other oil based products. But I don't think there's not a lot of products that have dipping on the label. And one of the things that I have noticed lately, because I've been talking a lot about dipping lately, is that, you know, I'll talk to somebody, well, I dipped to control thrips eggs in a safer soap. And, but I got phyto toxicity and there was a whole bunch of residue. Dips weren't on the safer soap label. And so you're not able to actually do that. And so there's not a dip rate on that, that, on that label. And dip rates are often different than the spray rates and much less. So you are not putting as much product out there. And, you know, also for, you know, phyto toxicity concerns. So just a quick note on dipping is just make sure that the products that you're using are labeled for dips and that there are dip rates so you don't torch your plants when, when, when doing those, those dips. But yes, a horticultural mineral oils, I would say, are, are generally good at killing all life stages including the egg. The essential oil based products may, depending on the product and what components that they have in there may also be able to kill the egg stage. But it's, I would say, not as likely to kill the egg stage as a horticultural mineral oil will be able to because you're getting that suffocation. So generally speaking, I would say if you're, if you're targeting eggs or if, you know, that is one of the important life stages that you're targeting, you might want to go for the horticultural mineral oil. When would you chew? So, so that kind of gets to horticultural mineral oil or essential oil, which one? And what I often tell growers is have them both because each one of them are going to have their strengths and weaknesses and or, or label benefits like the zero REI for your to be and it, you know, you're going to go after the egg stage, stuff oil. Other times, you know, you may have better efficacy using the essential oil based products. So honestly, the best programs are ones that are using both 25B products and essential oil, 25Bs and horticultural mineral oils. Yeah, my typical program would be to use alternate stuff oil and epichield and then I'll come in after, you know, some knockdown sprays to get the pest levels down. We'll come back with beneficial insects then to finish out my flowering cycle, for example. But I just want to say I learned a ton today. Thank you so much for your time. I do want to mention as a resource for folks two things. One, I already did a podcast with Julie on antimapathic fungi. He mentioned Bavaria, Nasseria and some of these other, these IPM products out there. So I highly suggest people listen to that because it partners very well with this oil conversation that we had today. And then two, if you are using a bio-works product, they have awesome resources around tank mixing. You can look for stuff oil, for example, and find out just about any other product if it's compatible with it. So that is a great resource for people to check out on the bio-works website. So I just want to mention that as well. And thank you so much for your time today. Absolutely. And since we're providing some resources, a few years ago, I did a article. It's called oils, myths, myths and magic. And it was out of greenhouse product news. And I want to say it was the June, 2022, 23 issue. I can get you a link or the article. And most of the things that we talked about for both types of products are in there. So if you would like to have that resource, it is out there for you as good reminders of many of the things that we talked about. That would be great. I would love to. I'll put that on the podcast page for folks so they can check that out. Sounds good. And thank you very much, Tad, for having me on once again. And I'm sure that my contact information can also be provided if you would like to reach out. Of course, you can also reach out to Tad. And thank you also for listening. That was Julie Grish and you are listening to the Cannabis Cultivation Science Podcast. If you like the podcast, please leave us a rating review and give us a follow on Instagram and YouTube. And don't forget at Kids Organics, we have a wide range of products we offer on our website, ranging from soils, amendments, beneficial insects, soil test analysis and consulting. Thanks for listening.