Can we talk about Nuke em?

Can we talk about Nuke em for a minute?
I keep hearing good things about nuke em, but I have yet to try it. People say it works for mites and mildew without all the nasty. Some folks say it works on Broad mites, though flying skulls recommends using Z7 with it for BM. I've also heard of people overduing it and stressing their plants with it.

When I first saw the product in the hydro store, the manufacturer listed the active ingredient as citric acid, with yeast and potassium sorbate as inert ingredients. In fact, it's still listed this way on the flying skulls website.
http://flyingskull.net/proddetail.php?prod=Nuke-em

However, if you looks at the other distributors of it elsewhere, ones who actually explain a bit of its "multiple" modes of action, they list potassium sorbate as the active ingredient, with citric acid and yeast as inert
http://www.wellplant.com/products/nuke-em/
http://www.wellplant.com/products/nuke-em/nuke-em-technical-information/

The EPa and USDa requires pesticide producers label as 'active' the ingredient they claim to be the working one. When I asked the local hydro store guy about this, he told me the flying skulls sales rep was pretty vague and didn't seem to want people to know just how it works. My friends in the dept of ag-organics program tell me pesticide producers could potentially get arround requirements to label ingredients as "active" by not advertising them to be.
So does Nuke em work? If so, what makes it work and how? What are its modes of action? and why is it so damn expensive?

The ingredients are listed by weight, so lets brake down a gallon of Nuke em.
1 gallon of water is 3780 grams, so
0.05% citric acid comes out to 1.89 grams per gallon.
9.43% yeast is 0.7858lbs per gallon
0.02% of potassium Sorbate is 0.756 grams ger gallon.

Even at the hydro stop, I get 1.6lb of citric acid cystals of 16$, so if my math is right, 1.89 grams is 4 cents worth of citric acid.
Brewer's yeast is about 7$/lb so 0.7858lb of yeast comes out to $5.50
I found potassium sorbate @ $18.50/lb (shiping included) on google. If my math is right again, that 0.756 grams costs 3 cents.
$0.04
$5.50
$0.03
$5.57 of active and inactive ingredients in a gallon of concentrate that retails for $55!
Of course that cost doesn't take into account labor, packaging, distribution and overhead on the manufacturing facility, but unless there is something missing here, this seems like an easy recipe to replicate.

Do anny of y'all have any thoughts on this product?
am I missing something here?
Feel free to share your experiences with Nuke em, success and failures!


EDIT: I looked a bit closer at the second label and noticed "Nuke em is not registered with the US Federal Environmental Protection Agency. Its formula qualifies for exemption under FIFRA section 25 (b) as a minimum risk pesticide. "
This may be why they can change their label's active ingredient claims.

Supposed to be a bug specific yeast. I don't know. I used it, following instructions EXACTLY, on Root Aphids. Didn't seem to work at all. Two treatments. I wasted my money. It may work on other things. That's my experience. Good luck. -granger

i bought this originally for spidermites on clones and it worked great for them. two applications and they were gone. not a heavy infestation at all but was a super easy fix. I've also used it for PM. it will "cure" the pm but it comes back and repeated use will show on the leaves. it makes them feel rough and they look spotty from where the PM was at. Ive used it for what i thought was broad mites following their application suggestions and using the z7. it fried my plants! it suggests doing a flush first because the nuke em will create phytotoxicity (i don't understand this part but thought someone else would and could elaborate?). It should also be mentioned that the pH of the nuke em is quite high (9.0?) and i thought this might have something to do regarding effectiveness or mode of action.

Personally, after the braod mite applications, if i was in veg, i would go ahead and try again if i was in love with the genetics. the new growth did emerge within a week but you are literally starting all over again. if i was in flower, after this experience, i would just go ahead a chop em down and start fresh if i compared the results with nuke em. i don't think i had broad mites so i can't speak to it's effectiveness on that, but after seeing the damage from the application for broad mites, I wouldn't suggest doing it.

The other day I was looking for products and a similar product popped up on google. it was an enzyme product that stated that it reactivate leaf microbes?? Z7 is an enzyme if i remember correctly reading the product info from flying skulls and while the infor i read was from a marketing pitch, it made me think that this was how z7 worked in conjunction with nuke em. z7 is sprayed after the nuke em, so i thought that it was supposed to reactivate the yeast.

People should know that is can be some strong shit and it will damage your plants depending on application and frequency. it works great for spider mites and will control mildew with repeated applications. I've heard it doesn't work well for root aphids. jury's out on broad mites.

good thread idea!

bump.

I just bought some nuke em and og biowar. I thought i had broad mites so i did an initial heat treatment at 124 degrees for little over an hour that burned the crap out of my pistils and really seemed to stunt their growth. I didn't see any mites afterwards but I did see a very fast moving whitish bug that i now believe is a root aphid.

I decided to go ahead and procede with the nuke em on a few plants to test. I followed all instructions and flushed before spraying them. They didn't seems to really like the spray. I also tried watering some into the soil of a different plant and i flushed that out afterwards as said and that plant seemed even more sad and more yellowish.

Granger- did you find an organic treatment that will work on root aphids in flower? Have you had any hands on experience with botanigard? I am planning on using the og biowar in veg but I saw in another thread you said its the same as met 52, do you prefer the met 52?

Also what kind of organic pesticides have yall had the most success with as a preventative in flower?

Catfish John said:

Also what kind of organic pesticides have yall had the most success with as a preventative in flower?

Click to expand...

If you water with cold pressed neem once a week you'll be gold.