Just noticed this on Lanmark's signature thingy:
"I was never really able to definitively diagnose the brownish-black spots which appeared on some of my rupicolous Laelias several months ago. I successfully treated the spots with a homemade concoction I made by blending together small amounts of the following ingredients: miconazole foot cream, Bactroban (mupirocin) ointment, powdered sulfur (sublimed/flowers of sulfur) and pure cinnamon bark oil."
Athlete's foot treatment for plant fungal infections. Any elaboration? Discussion?
-Ernie
Hehehe that's not my signature. I simply reduced the size of the font for that part of my post since I did not want to hijack the thread from its original topic of Dragons Blood. That being said, here is some information about miconazole which I dug up using Google:
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XXp://www.springerlink.com/content/xxt82pk651r454q6/
...oh, btw, would it have been ok for me to have inserted a working link here?
Edit: So I have been searching Google for more information about treating fungal and bacterial infections on plants with drugs commonly used on humans and other mammals. After all, what else is there to do on a Snow Day?
There have been other such disccussions online over the past few years. Here's a condensed version of what I have learned so far:
Petrolatum-based ointments are supposed to be bad for plants. (Thank goodness the Bactroban ointment I used has a water soluble base of polyethylene glycol. The miconazole cream seems to be based on mineral oil and I don't know whether or not that is detrimental.)
The Bactroban was probably a useless element in my homemade potion since it kills only gram-positive bacteria. Plants get infected with gram-negative bacteria. Adding oxytetracycline (a common antibiotic for aquarium fish) might have been quite effective against any bacteria which may have been present, although I don't know how deep it penetrates, if at all, nor if it is taken up systemically by the plant
I wonder if crushing up a Levaquin tablet and mixing some of the powder into my concoction would kill harmful bacteria on an orchid plant... :crazy:
And finally, it never fails, someone always comes along and says an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Well duh
oke: we all know that. A lot of good that sentiment does someone when their prized orchid plant is already sick.
We all live and learn from our mistakes (or most of us do anyway) but sometimes no matter how careful we are, disease happens, and when it does, it's only natural we seek ways to cure it. Inserting comments about prevention are irrelevant to the topic at hand. :snore:
I'm still interested to hear if anyone else has successfully used miconazole (or other azole-type anti-fungal agent) on their orchids. I'd love to hear any success stories regarding antibiotics too. Meanwhile, I'm eager to get some of that Dragons Blood. I think it would be worthwhile keeping some of that onhand...just in case. :wink:
