Sesame Oil Pesticide?

[ShadyStump]

My hibiscus have been hit hard by a coalition of aphids, some sort of fly/gnat, and scale. All at once, as soon as they came in for the winter.

I've been spraying one to two times a week with this stuff

The only active ingredient listed is sesame oil. It's an old bottle found open in a selection of random garden stuff at an auction or yard sale or something.
It's sorta been working, but not as effective as the tobacco spray I usually use over winter. I just didn't want to use the tobacco spray because we actually did a decent job of collecting ladybugs and black wolf spiders to help with pests this year.
Yes, we bring bugs inside for winter. They just aren't keeping up with these pests right now.

Anyways, can anyone tell me if I'm wasting my time with this sesame oil stuff, or would I do better just making my own at the grocery store, or other suggestions?

 

[Carol 83]

It's sorta been working,

Yikes, I don't think it's working very well. I spray mine before coming in for the winter with Bayer 3-1.

 

[nuttiest]

can anyone tell me if I'm wasting my time with this sesame oil stuff,

Is it the toasted sesame oil ? Not sure I would rely on the untoasted.

 

[ShadyStump]

Yikes, I don't think it's working very well. I spray mine before coming in for the winter with Bayer 3-1.

Oh, well, you only think so because you didn't see them a month ago.
I'm just not sure HOW WELL it's working. I can't tell if it works because it works, or if it works because I drenched the worst spots so heavily that it would kill anything whether or not it actually works.
Either way, the infestation doesn't seem to have spread to much else, and the mealy bugs have stayed down so far relatively speaking, so I suppose it might be doing something.

Is it the toasted sesame oil ? Not sure I would rely on the untoasted.

I was afraid the toasted sesame oil would burn my plants.

 

[nuttiest]

Maybe just stop, you can't even spray with peppermint if you are trying to keep your predators or see what they can do.

 

[Michigan Tree Murderer]

I'd hose that sucker down in the sink, bathtub, or outdoors if it's not to cold. Then check it for the next 3-4 weeks. I've thrown a hibiscus out when it was infected like that. I'd isolate it in the very least. I always tell my plants "It's winter time! if you get bugs you get snow." Then I started using a systematic as it's less expensive.

 

[JEads]

I have used a bottle of that exact product and while it made the greenhouse smell really nice, I did not see any evidence of it actually killing any insects. Safe for bees, tho.

 

[ShadyStump]

That's the feeling I'm getting so far; that it's only effective because I've used so much, maybe help contain the spread a little.
It hasn't been above freezing the past few days, so not much I can do to separate them. Might try dunking them when I get some time.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Why not order some live predatory mites? The ladybugs can eat those too if they become a problem.
I still find hoverfly larvae on my pines, munching down on the few aphids that are left.

 

[ShadyStump]

Coming back to this, as I've been doing some reading.

I've browsed through a variety of scientific articles regarding sesame oil and pesticides, and it appears that sesame oil itself is not efficient as a pesticide, however it is a very effective synergist to many common pesticides.

In laymen's terms, it doesn't do crap on its own, but adding it to other pesticides somehow makes them more effective at lower doses.
So, when you're mixing up a batch of the shelf liquid death, half the recipe and add a spoonful or two of sesame oil from the supermarket. You should get the same or better results.

Some links for curious. I only read through the abstracts myself.

Radware Bot Manager Captcha

Efficacy of some plant oils alone and/or combined with different insecticides on the cotton leaf-worm Spodoptera littoralis (Boisd.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Egypt - PubMed

The present work was conducted to evaluate the efficiency of two essential oils ((Flax or "Linseed" and Sesame ), five volatile plant oils ( Camphor, Red basil, Rose, Menthol and Clove ), four pesticides (Methoxyfenozide; Permethrin; Profenofos and Spinosad) and their mixtures on the cotton...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://ecommons.cornell.edu/items/493da220-1c2e-4e86-b5de-d36daea82898

There are others of interest, including a 1938 patent when the effect was first discovered, and studies involving a variety of essential oils and the like. All indicate that sesame oil is very effective synergist, if all but useless on it's own.