RE: Slugs

My husband would just freak if I took his expresso in the morning before he
got to make it into a mocha- especially if he found out that I was pouring
it on slugs!

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-perennials@hort.net [o*@hort.net]On
Behalf Of Karen B.
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 7:43 PM
To: perennials@hort.net
Subject: Slugs


Doug Green wrote:

> Use coffee and tea on the slugs.  Caffein concentrations of 5% will
> kill them while the .25% concentrations of coffee and tea will deter
> them.  Interesting note last year from usda research.
>
> Maybe my son's Jolt Cola can come in useful? :-))


Hmmm, from what I have read, coffee doesn't contain enough caffeine.
Here is a link I found in one of my saved messages:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,744579,00.html

Another message contains info from The Garden (monthly journal of the RHS):

"It basically says that 'a spray solution of 1-2 percent caffeine kills
large slugs, and repels them when concentrations are as low as 0.1
perent' ... 'It is not known how the caffeine kills the molluscs, but it
seems to damage the nervous system.' Unfortunately, they don't say how
to come by caffeine - but they do say that 'a cup of instant coffee
contains about 0.05 percent caffeine'."

I don't know if the caffeine percentage is higher for brewed coffee. The
link above says expresso has 2 percent.

Karen

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