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Nicotine and pest control (was Jerry Baker)

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.farmerbrown.org

Hello,

 Having some free time today and after posting the recipe for "tobacco
juice" pesticide and asking for opinions I decided to research the issue on
the Internet. I must say I found everything from " It will kill you even you
only knew someone who thought about using" to "perfectly safe to jump in a
vat full".
Nicotine sulfate was once used commonly in this country, a product called
black leaf or black leaf 40 was apparently used widely for pest control. I
was unable to ascertain whether this product was banned or because of
licensing requirements became too expensive to market. The references to
this pesticide often referred to a 40% solution which if true seems awfully
strong. There is no question that nicotine is a deadly poison but so are
many things, the question is then is it "unsafe at any speed" or at the
proper level is it safe to use. As I said in my previous post I have no
doubt about its effectiveness as I saw it kill a wasp in about 2 minutes or
less and also there is no question it will kill beneficial insects as well,
so in the levels called for in the recipe is it safe or not?.
I think it is important to actually look at the amount of tobacco involved.
The recipe calls for 1/3 of an ounce, 1/3 of an ounce is about what the
average chewing tobacco user has in one "chaw", now the average chewing
tobacco user may have several of these "chaws" daily, since nicotine is
absorbed through tissues it is obvious to me that the average chewing
tobacco user will absorb a heavy level of nicotine regardless of the fact
they expectorate most of the "juice" created.
The directions say to make a "tea" out of 1/3 ounce chewing tobacco in a pot
of water, after making this "tea" add enough water to make a gallon of
tobacco juice, from this gallon use 8 oz to add to the final formula, from
the final formula use 1.5 oz to a gallon of water to make the spray. Now, do
you see where I'm going with this?, I have a problem believing the amount of
nicotine in this mixture is a problem.

All opinions welcomed.


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