How do you do pest control in your wood piles?
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I have mine here in MA. That's why I chimed in.
Both of yours must have been much more in-depth than Delaware's.
I think he'll be okay until his business is on a much larger scale.
Of course you do but bugs are bugs. Organic is limited in it's effectiveness but it is the least impactful to the environment. I don't know of any organic materials that will keep ants and termites out of your wood pile. As it was described to the recertification group for our licenses, organic only pisses your pests off, they leave for a while and once the material dissipates, the bugs come back. Organic is generally not a killer, it's simply send the bugs away for a while. A local nursery once described organic pesticides as costing twice as much, having 1/2 the success while needing to be applied twice as often.
Proper application of pesticides is the best way to kill bugs and while you do need a license and insurance to use pesticides on other peoples property as a contractor, you don't need a license to apply to your own property. Just brains and understanding of the process of what your doing.
As they DRILL INTO OUR HEADS in the classes READ THE LABEL, THE ENTIRE LABEL AND PROCEED ACCORDINGLY.
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Yep. The organic stuff doesn't always stick around, which is why during the rainy mosquito season I usually redo my customer's mosquitoes so that they don't get bitten again.
I spray the area with talstar then spray the pallets or cross posts with talstar then stack on top of them. I also place outdoor rated rodent poison blocks under the pallets to keep the ship rats from invading and making nests...those nasty fookers will pizz and sht on half the stack over a years seasoning time.
U&A
Addicted to ArboristSite
I let things that want homes there, have homes there. In the winter the wood still burns.
Keep the pile far from the house
O dont seem to have issues with critters tho. I inly get lots of ribbon snakes, very few ants (snakes eat them), a few tiny yellow jacket nests and a few mice homes.
Keep the pile far from the house
O dont seem to have issues with critters tho. I inly get lots of ribbon snakes, very few ants (snakes eat them), a few tiny yellow jacket nests and a few mice homes.
Down here we have huge wood beetles the size of your thumb, they will destroy entire piles in a year. We also have Norwegian ship rats the size of a mens 9 shoe that will turn each pile into a rat condo with the nests on one end and the other 1/3 of the pile is used as their toilet. Once rats move in you get snakes..rat snakes, corn, snakes, pine snakes, rattle snakes (several species), cotton mouths, copper heads. Flying invaders include yellow jackets, red wasps, paper hornets, guniea wasps and carpenter bees, last but not least are the termites. We have multiple species and all will infest and rod out your entire pile in a few short months. Piles must be covered here due to the every day rain we get june, july and weekly heavy rain and hurricane season that often never allow humidity under 100% for weeks at a time where the ground stays wet/damp that will rot out entire 36" tree trunks left on the ground only a few months.
Number one is keep the wood off the ground. Most of you wood eating bugs live in the soil and only come up to eat.
Number two is keep it dry. Moisture attracts bugs, especially termites.
Number 3, spray the grown before stacking the wood with a good termicide. I like Bifentrin, can buy it at Lowes, Homedepot, and TSC. It doesnt take much and any ants, especally those dang fire ants, that walk across what you spray will be gone before the day is out. Bifentrin is very deadly to bees, so keep that in mind when using. But yellow jackets, carpenter bore bees, wasp, hornets, all are fair game in my book. Spray their nest and forget about them, they will be dead before the next morning comes. If you feel the need to actually spray the wood, I would use Spinosad, its effective and organic rated by OMRI. You just have to repeat the spraying every few days to establish control. Bifentrin last between 7 and 15 weeks, so if the wood isnt going to be used soon, or is going to dry until the next season, I would go ahead and spray the wood as well as the ground. I usually mix spinosad with neem oil for my veggies and spray about once a week until fruit appears and that seems to keep the bugs under control.
Diatomaceous earth kills anything with an exoskeleton. Gets in their joints and grinds them away, like moon dust on a space suit. Very fine powder, put it in a Gatorade bottle with some holes drilled in the lid, and shake/squirt it every layer or two of wood. So non toxic it's added to animal feed to combat bugs in the feed. When I bought it, you could get it for $20/lb on Amazon, or $8/100lbs at the farm store, but that's been awhile. No clue what current pricing is.
Don't breath it, it's almost pure silica, and can cause silicosis.
I had carpenter ants in one wall of my house. Put the DE in a cheap spot sand blaster, drilled a hole between the studs, stick the nozzle in the hole, give a good blast. Repeat between each stud, caulk up the hole. Saw a couple ants the day after that, both covered in powder and not moving well, then never again.
Don't breath it, it's almost pure silica, and can cause silicosis.
I had carpenter ants in one wall of my house. Put the DE in a cheap spot sand blaster, drilled a hole between the studs, stick the nozzle in the hole, give a good blast. Repeat between each stud, caulk up the hole. Saw a couple ants the day after that, both covered in powder and not moving well, then never again.
Andy2165
New Member
Processing and burning wood for well over a decade and counting, never used anything like that on the stacked woodpile. Get the odd spider or so, a few beetles here and there, but nothing you can't catch and put out of the window.
Dry wood no bugs.
Toxic chemicals. What is the definition of toxic? And what chemicals classify as toxic?
Petroleum is a scary word to some, but it’s not toxic. You’re heard of Vaseline. Aka Petroleum Jelly. Totally safe.
Don’t be so quick to bash useful chemicals. Do your research, but keep in mind you will find some greeny websites that will consider anything made by man to be toxic. Use your common sense.
Petroleum is a scary word to some, but it’s not toxic. You’re heard of Vaseline. Aka Petroleum Jelly. Totally safe.
Don’t be so quick to bash useful chemicals. Do your research, but keep in mind you will find some greeny websites that will consider anything made by man to be toxic. Use your common sense.
So what would you spray?
I have my Michigan certified pesticide-herbicide applicators licenses which I have to renew (and take a written exam every other year) that allows me to purchase just about everything made today and even stuff that consumers buy but in much more concentrated form.
You'd be amazed at the cost of some of the products, for example, I buy 24D-B which is chemically buffered 24D that won't harm alfalfa plants (24D broad spectrum will kill alfalfa) and a gallon jug of that is over 160 bucks. I use a lot of that.
What could be spayed to keep insects away from firewood that wouldn't be harmful to people burning wood?
20 mule te
20 mule team borax. You can get it at your local grocery store. You can use it to treat your wood pile or to wash your clothes. Safe, effective, and long lasting.
Stonewoodiron
ArboristSite Operative
Do you dilute it in water and spray it ?
I would think it would clog the sprayer, use it as a powder. Put it on the base of where you stack the wood. What type of insects are in your wood?
Stonewoodiron
ArboristSite Operative
It worked when I did it. Hot water and borax. Although, the quantity of borax was small. Mostly I was trying to keep borers out of my live edge slabs but didn’t want to use harsh chemicals since they could/did end up as someone’s tables.
Its a soap powder, washing powder. Mix it in water and spray it on. If your worried about clogging, go to your farm store and buy some solubor and mix it instead of the soap.
