Shannon Bennett
Well-known member
Lemon eucalyptus oil and catnip oil are both effective at repelling insects.
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Natural Insect repellents
- Thread starter Shannon Bennett
- Start date
LMonty
Advisory Board, Administrator, In Memoriam
Re: Natural Insect repellents
excellent post, a good question I need help on too.
Interesting you metnion Lemon Eucalyptus, I just read somewhere last night (Prevention mag?) that theres a commercial line of repellants coming out based on that.
Can essential oils be used to create ones own from either herb? The eucalyptus probably doesnt grow around here (unless its an annual) but the catnip should be easy.
But for concentrated use, the oils might be the way to go.
Ideas?
excellent post, a good question I need help on too.
Interesting you metnion Lemon Eucalyptus, I just read somewhere last night (Prevention mag?) that theres a commercial line of repellants coming out based on that.
Can essential oils be used to create ones own from either herb? The eucalyptus probably doesnt grow around here (unless its an annual) but the catnip should be easy.
But for concentrated use, the oils might be the way to go.
Ideas?
Shannon Bennett
Well-known member
Re: Natural Insect repellents
L., essential oils are the way to go. You can use the eucalyptus straight from the bottle but it is more cost-effective to use the catnip oil instead. It costs more to begin with but, it must be diluted before applying to your skin. Just put it into a small bottle of a carrier oil and apply as usual. A good choice might be almond oil as it is good for your skin anyway. It should be diluted at least 10:1. And you can dilute even more if you find the little pests don't require that much concentration. It will depend on the kind of mosquito you are dealing with and your own personal attractiveness to the little blood-suckers.
L., essential oils are the way to go. You can use the eucalyptus straight from the bottle but it is more cost-effective to use the catnip oil instead. It costs more to begin with but, it must be diluted before applying to your skin. Just put it into a small bottle of a carrier oil and apply as usual. A good choice might be almond oil as it is good for your skin anyway. It should be diluted at least 10:1. And you can dilute even more if you find the little pests don't require that much concentration. It will depend on the kind of mosquito you are dealing with and your own personal attractiveness to the little blood-suckers.
sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
Re: Natural Insect repellents
Does eating garlic or other spicy plants help?
Does eating garlic or other spicy plants help?
Sally Furniss
Well-known member
Re: Natural Insect repellents
Drinking fenugreek tea is very effective. The curry smell from the tea comes through the pores, insects hate it.
Drinking fenugreek tea is very effective. The curry smell from the tea comes through the pores, insects hate it.
AlaskaDenise
In Memoriam
Alaska Yellow-Cedar as Mosquito Repellant
Alaska Yellow-Cedar as Mosquito Repellant
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF17/1757.html
Alaska Science Forum
June 30, 2005
<HR SIZE=4>
by Ned Rozell
<HR align=left>
Alaska Yellow-Cedar as Mosquito Repellant
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF17/1757.html
Alaska Science Forum
June 30, 2005
<HR SIZE=4>
Alaska Yellow-Cedar as Mosquito Repellant?
Article #1757by Ned Rozell
<HR align=left>
This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.
Massive Alaska yellow-cedar trees contain natural preservatives that repel mosquitoes, kill ticks, and prevent diseases from attacking other trees.
Alaska yellow-cedar has the strongest wood of any in the state, and grows on coastlines from Prince William Sound to northern California. In recent years, yellow-cedar have been dying of causes other than old age on more than 500,000 acres of Southeast Alaska, and scientists aren?t yet sure why. Some think it may be warm winters and springs that are limiting snowfall accumulation, exposing shallow root systems to blasts of lethal cold air. As the trees' cause of death is investigated, scientists have come up with an innovative way to utilize the dead trees.
When Alaska yellow-cedars die, they often remain standing for more than a century. Rick Kelsey and Nick Panella are two scientists who are finding uses for the mass of dead trees, beyond lumber and firewood.
Kelsey, who works for the U.S. Forest Service in Corvallis, Oregon, traveled with Paul Hennon of the Forest Service in Juneau to collect heartwood samples from live and dead yellow-cedar trees in Southeast Alaska. From those samples, Kelsey and others looked at 16 compounds within the trees? essential oil. They tested a few of those compounds, nootkatin and carvacrol, in the lab and found they killed spores of Phytophthora ramorum, the fungus that causes sudden oak death. Sudden oak death has killed thousands of oak trees in California.
The anti-fungal compounds in Alaska yellow-cedar persist in the heartwood for up to a quarter-century after the trees die. Kelsey thinks that shavings or chips of Alaska yellow-cedar could prevent the spread of sudden oak death in some areas. He envisions spreading the chips over pathways in recreational areas where hikers and bicyclists pick up the spores that cause sudden oak death and carry them without knowing it. The chipped pathways might kill the spores before the disease can get established in a new area.
Panella is a biologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?s Division of Vector-borne Infectious Diseases, based out of Fort Collins, Colorado. He and his coworkers? search for all-natural pesticides led them to check out the virtues of dead Alaska yellow-cedar. In a lab where his agency raises about 10 different species of mosquitoes for use in experiments, Panella coated the inside of bottles with the essential oils from yellow-cedar heartwood and dropped 25 to 50 mosquitoes into each bottle. He found that the compounds carvacrol, nootkatone, and valencene-13-0L were effective at killing Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, and that the compound nootkatol was a repellant. Both compounds did the job in many cases after being in the bottles for up to six weeks. Aedes aegypti don?t occur in Alaska, but the mosquitoes carry dengue and yellow fever in other parts of the world.
Panella and his colleagues have mixed up a repellant from the Alaska yellow-cedar compounds and it has worked for several hours. Yellow-cedar compounds also work against ticks and fleas, Panella said, and have low toxicity to mammals. The researchers have filed patents on their mixtures as repellants and insecticides, and are talking with businesspeople who are interested in developing and selling the final products. Some day in the near future, Alaska?s most valuable lumber export may also repel its worst summer pest.
Massive Alaska yellow-cedar trees contain natural preservatives that repel mosquitoes, kill ticks, and prevent diseases from attacking other trees.
Alaska yellow-cedar has the strongest wood of any in the state, and grows on coastlines from Prince William Sound to northern California. In recent years, yellow-cedar have been dying of causes other than old age on more than 500,000 acres of Southeast Alaska, and scientists aren?t yet sure why. Some think it may be warm winters and springs that are limiting snowfall accumulation, exposing shallow root systems to blasts of lethal cold air. As the trees' cause of death is investigated, scientists have come up with an innovative way to utilize the dead trees.
When Alaska yellow-cedars die, they often remain standing for more than a century. Rick Kelsey and Nick Panella are two scientists who are finding uses for the mass of dead trees, beyond lumber and firewood.
Kelsey, who works for the U.S. Forest Service in Corvallis, Oregon, traveled with Paul Hennon of the Forest Service in Juneau to collect heartwood samples from live and dead yellow-cedar trees in Southeast Alaska. From those samples, Kelsey and others looked at 16 compounds within the trees? essential oil. They tested a few of those compounds, nootkatin and carvacrol, in the lab and found they killed spores of Phytophthora ramorum, the fungus that causes sudden oak death. Sudden oak death has killed thousands of oak trees in California.
The anti-fungal compounds in Alaska yellow-cedar persist in the heartwood for up to a quarter-century after the trees die. Kelsey thinks that shavings or chips of Alaska yellow-cedar could prevent the spread of sudden oak death in some areas. He envisions spreading the chips over pathways in recreational areas where hikers and bicyclists pick up the spores that cause sudden oak death and carry them without knowing it. The chipped pathways might kill the spores before the disease can get established in a new area.
Panella is a biologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?s Division of Vector-borne Infectious Diseases, based out of Fort Collins, Colorado. He and his coworkers? search for all-natural pesticides led them to check out the virtues of dead Alaska yellow-cedar. In a lab where his agency raises about 10 different species of mosquitoes for use in experiments, Panella coated the inside of bottles with the essential oils from yellow-cedar heartwood and dropped 25 to 50 mosquitoes into each bottle. He found that the compounds carvacrol, nootkatone, and valencene-13-0L were effective at killing Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, and that the compound nootkatol was a repellant. Both compounds did the job in many cases after being in the bottles for up to six weeks. Aedes aegypti don?t occur in Alaska, but the mosquitoes carry dengue and yellow fever in other parts of the world.
Panella and his colleagues have mixed up a repellant from the Alaska yellow-cedar compounds and it has worked for several hours. Yellow-cedar compounds also work against ticks and fleas, Panella said, and have low toxicity to mammals. The researchers have filed patents on their mixtures as repellants and insecticides, and are talking with businesspeople who are interested in developing and selling the final products. Some day in the near future, Alaska?s most valuable lumber export may also repel its worst summer pest.
Shannon Bennett
Well-known member
Re: Natural Insect repellents
AD, it kills the spores of Phytophthora ramorum! Wow, now that is wonderful news. I'm not sure how you could use the oil on a live tree but still it suggests there may be a way to stop what up till now was a dreadful scourge to not just oak trees but several other species as well.
To answer your garlic question.
AD, it kills the spores of Phytophthora ramorum! Wow, now that is wonderful news. I'm not sure how you could use the oil on a live tree but still it suggests there may be a way to stop what up till now was a dreadful scourge to not just oak trees but several other species as well.
To answer your garlic question.
</H4>
sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
Re: Natural Insect repellents
bump this.
bump this.
Re: Natural Insect repellents
And the cedar tree oil is something to think about. But what if a hive of bees suddenly decides to go out looking for tree resin to make a few pounds of propolis and mistakes me for a cedar tree? Then I have the problem of bees swarming all over me.
sigh...
The catnip oil sounds great. I do have a lot of wild catnip, but what about the cats? I might get rid of the mosquitoes, only to have all the neighbor's cats, and my own, pouncing on me all day.
And the cedar tree oil is something to think about. But what if a hive of bees suddenly decides to go out looking for tree resin to make a few pounds of propolis and mistakes me for a cedar tree? Then I have the problem of bees swarming all over me.
sigh...
Re: Natural Insect repellents
Native American remedies:
http://www.powersource.com/cherokee/herbal.html
Insect Repellents and Insecticides
Goldenseal.
The Cherokee pounded the large rootstock with bear fat and smeared it on their bodies as an insect repellent. It was also used as a tonic, stimulant, and astringent.
(Influenza
Native Hemlock (as opposed Poison Hemlock of Socrates fame).
The Menominees prepared a tea if the inner bark and drank it to relieve cold symptoms. A similar tea was used by the Forest Potawatomis to induce sweating and relieve colds and feverish conditions.)
The goldenseal roots I know I can find, but I'm not so sure about the bear fat.
Native American remedies:
http://www.powersource.com/cherokee/herbal.html
Insect Repellents and Insecticides
Goldenseal.
The Cherokee pounded the large rootstock with bear fat and smeared it on their bodies as an insect repellent. It was also used as a tonic, stimulant, and astringent.
(Influenza
Native Hemlock (as opposed Poison Hemlock of Socrates fame).
The Menominees prepared a tea if the inner bark and drank it to relieve cold symptoms. A similar tea was used by the Forest Potawatomis to induce sweating and relieve colds and feverish conditions.)
The goldenseal roots I know I can find, but I'm not so sure about the bear fat.