Do you know plants have their own mechanisms to protect themselves from pest attack, if they are in a healthy growing condition? Actually plants will release phytoncide to protect themselves from pest and disease attack naturally and we do not need to spray any pesticides or fungicides to make sure it growing healthily! However, like human beings, plants will fall sick too and their immune system will be weaken if their growing condition does not favour their natural inclination. When pest coming, we normally choose to using chemical pesticides to solves the problem immediately. However, chemical pesticides and fungicides are poisonous to humans. And long term exposure may incur many health problems like cancer, allergies or even sterility! Besides that, it may leach to the soil and water resources pollute the environment! Actually we could make a better choices by using natural pesticides and fungicides to solve the pest problems! It is more eco-friendly and can solving the pest problems effectively too!
Organic and Natural Pesticides
The simplest way to control the pest in an eco-friendly way is using organic pesticides. For example neem oil, pyrethrin (extract of chrysanthemums) or spinosad may reduce assorted species of hemiptera insects' population! Besides that, the diatomaceous earth and tea seeds cake could use in killing snails, slugs and soft body insects. All of these are organic pesticides which could use in reduce pest population without causing pollution problem. However, organic pesticides are not as effective as chemical pesticides. It will not kill all the pests instantly but reduce the number of pests and create a balance ecosystem between the number of the pest and beneficial insect. Creating eco balance is more important than killing all the pests in the niches for long term beneficial to prevent the outbreak of pest happened again! If the number of pests is not in tremendous numbers, we may just use organic liquid soap mixed with water in 1:500 ratio! It is good enough to control the population of the pest without polluting the environment and brings bad effects to our health!
Organic and Natural Fungicides
Besides pest problems, disease problems are also caused by the unhealthy plants condition. But we may use some natural fungicides which could be found in our home kitchen to curing the fungi affection of plants! For example, using carbon bicarbonate (baking soda) mixed with water in 1:200 ratio and spray to the surface of the plants to stop the spreading of the fungus! We may buy some organic fungicide like copper oxide if the baking soda is not effective in controlling the fungus spreading! Using organic copper oxide and baking soda are more eco-friendly compared to the other chemical fungicides!
Natural or Synthetic Weeds Mat
We may using wood shred, wood barks, small granules may be used for potted plants as natural mulching to control the weeds. Besides that, if the area is wide and it is impractical to use natural sources as mulching! We may direct using weeds control mat to cover the land where we did not plant anything. Weedicides are carcinogenic, the toxin leaching to the soil and drain may cause pollution of water, soil sources and enter our food chain eventually ! Moreover if we spray the weedicides excessively, we may cause the land unable to plant anything until the residues of weedicides have leached to lower levels of the soil.
