NI30745 Lawn & Garden Fungicide, 2oz

Great product but a bit difficult to review. Soil borne pathogens can be the end all for many gardeners attempts at success. In particular, any number of the fusarium wilts races. Once this pathogen resides in your soil, it will remain there, active or dormant, for many years. Many backyard gardeners, including myself, are not afforded the luxury of crop rotation and prefer to plant non disease resistant varieties. (Heirlooms) This product and the like (Root Guardian) are not magic bullets. In order for beneficial microbes to be effective, a balanced symbiotic relationship must become established! I shall list some do's and don'ts in effort to simplify this process.The full benefits of this product, or the like, can only be realized through a complete organic approach. One needs to understand the difference between conventional and organic philosophies to begin with. The conventional approach as advertised by Ortho, Miracle Grow, etc, teach us to nourish the plant. The organic approach teaches us to nourish the soil. Think in terms of how your body would respond to consuming nutrient deprived foods topped off with synthetic vitamins in disproportionate quantities as opposed to eating nutrient rich foods as nature intended. Sure, you will survive embracing the former, but you will thrive embracing the latter. Same holds true for all living things. So first you must make sure to properly nourish your soil then your soil will nourish your plants. Rule 1. Location. Make sure what you wish to grow receives adequate sunlight and proper growing season length. 2. Compost, compost and compost. Forget the idea of synthetic 10-10-10 fertilizers. (See disproportionate quantities above) The use of these types of fertilizers can also cause unpredictable PH changes and are easy over used. Organic adjuncts such as bone meal, blood meal, wood ash, etc, allow one to tailor the needs for different plant requirements. 3. Plant your crops from quality seed stock. This will not only eliminate purchasing over grown, root bound and chemically treated nursery stock, but will allow you to treat your seed from day one. Never use chlorinated tap water to dissolve any microbes for you will render them useless. Never use chlorinated tap water period. If you must irrigate your garden, there are hose end chlorine filters available. 4. Adjust your soil PH towards the alkaline side regarding the plants preference. (Most undesirable microbes prefer acidic soil) 5. Assuming that you have amended your soil with compost and the appropriate adjuncts, till in this product at the proper time for planting to a depth of at least six inches. This will ensure an adequate supply of beneficial microbes are available to the plants root system. 6. Choose mulch which will not compress to firmly. Straw, cocoa shells and eel grass to name a few. Salt hay, contrary to popular belief, is a poor choice for most vegetables as it decays too slowly and often harbors molds. All mulches should allow a free exchange of oxygen and water between the soil surface and the atmosphere. They should also be biodegradable enough to be incorporated into the soil at the end of the season or composted. Re-using mulch invites over wintering insect eggs as well as undesirable pathogens to be re-introduced the following year. 7. Re-apply this product at 8-12 week intervals just prior to a thorough irrigation or rain event. 8. Watering, the tough one. Do not over water. It is best for most plants to allow the first inch or so of topsoil to dry before watering. Constant surface moisture is a sure fire method of incubating all kinds of diseases and undesirable insects. This is one reason for choosing the proper mulch and its quantity. The "blanket your plants with 2-4 inches of mulch" approach is just plain wrong unless you are selling it. Generally, mulch should be applied with a light hand early on and amended according to weather conditions and plant varieties. This varies tremendously regarding different geographic locations but the same rule still applies. As the weather gets hotter and drier, the more mulch one should apply. I told you this was going to be a difficult review for me.

I ordered two packets of Actinovate from Amazon after buying another packet earlier from a different seller. The Amazon price was about $1.00 per packet less than the previous source. This is a great, environmentally friendly choice for control of all sorts of fungus on flowers, vegetables, fruit trees, and lawns.I had a bad powdery mildew problem in my lawn. Over the course of three days it had gone from just a few visible patches to my entire back yard and part of my front yard being badly infected. I applied the product twice at one week intervals. I might have been able to go with one application but we had several days of heavy rain between the applications. After the first application, the worst of the mildew disappeared within about 48 hours. Then it rained for four days and signs of infection appeared on most of the blades of grass but only at the tips. After the second application, almost all signs of the fungus were gone. It has now been about 2 weeks and there is no sign of any significant return of the mildew.I'm also using the product to control rust and downy mildew on some flowers and black spot on my roses. It has checked both diseases. I've used other products on these plants in years past including Fungonil, a copper soap, a neem-based product, and a systemic fungicide. None has worked as well as the Actinovate. The systemic fungicide was so potentially toxic that I was actually afraid to use it. The Actinovate is not nearly as risky to use. Additionally, we like to garden for butterflies and I know this product does not present any significant risk to them when they visit my flowers.I recommend using a wetting agent or spreader-sticker with the product to get even application and help prevent the product from being easily washed off by light rains. I used turbo and it seems to have worked well. I have also mixed this product with a neem-based product to address a fungal and aphid issue on a peach tree. It cleared the problem in two applications.

This is I great organic product to help fight what attacks your plant. I bought Actinovate when it first came out in 2005. Well worth the money for any type of plants.

I'm an aesthetic pruner and landscape consultant with over 20 years of experience in the Bay Area. My colleagues and I call this product "Magic Juice" because it works so well. Before this product came out, we viewed many common landscape disorders as fatal, including sudden oak death and verticillium and fusarum wilt diseases. Now I treat trees and shrubs and they recover, and do so dramatically within a few weeks or months of application, depending on the season and type of plant. Most Japanese maples acquire wilt disease while in nurseries, but a few treatments of this and they are fine, no longer dying back slowly and horribly. In fact, sometimes they recover so quickly its shocking. I use it as a leaf drench for camellias infected with Phytopthora and they recover within a few weeks from yellow and dying to green and healthy. If I have a sick plant, this is my first go-to medicine, since the biologically active oomycetes eat many different soil-bourne pathogens and allow plants to fight off other types of disease more easily. I cannot recommend it enough. Do not be put off by the price, its worth every penny.