I have a few dozen fresh transplanted giant sunflower seedlings about 1ft high and taller. They are getting damaged by some insects already. What is a good dust I can get to protect them from such damage. I have lost a few already, most of the leaves are near gone on the badly damaged ones. May be beetles or ants but haven't seen the turds yet doing the deed.

Sevin dust takes care of most anything.

sevin insecticide. you can get it anywhere. Wally world, home depot, lowes or any hardware store.

that is what I had figured as well.

Maybe try some ladybugs. Much more expensive than sevin but they eat tons of bugs. We use them in our garden and the flowers

I use spinosad. The rain kept washing the seven off my potatoes, I sprayed the spinosad and the potato bugs were dead by evening.

Colorado potato beetle has developed resistance to almost every pesticide. Sevin won't do anything to stop them. Spinosad is an organic solution that is partially successful. Not successful enough to have made it into commercial production. Imidacloprid is the only "traditional" pesticide left and resistance is now being seen with that chemical too.

I just gave them a good dusting of sevin so we will see what happens in the next few days.

I went out late last nite and found what was eating my leaves. Slugs. The Sevin gets washed off quite easily as was stated, I need to find another treatment that is more water repellent I see.

I think that predator insects are a great idea.

If you can find it, try Sluggo. It's little pellets that you sprinkle on the ground and they eat it and kills them. I found it at TSC.

Hey Bob just run that weed Wacker close to the base of them sunflowers and go up to wally world and get yourself a bag of them sunflower seeds. It'd be a whole lot less aggravating.

Think for slugs you use a ground up oyster shell dumped around the base of the plants.... See ya next week at the rendezvous.

Vinegar or 28 %N. I have never sprayed vinegar. Spray dusk or after dark. The 28% washes the slime off them and they carve themselves up. 2 parts water, 1 part 28 % as straight 28 will burn leaves. For a small area maybe dawn soap would work. Catch a slug and see if Dawn deslimes them. You have to spray when they are out feeding.

a good way to apply Sevin dust is with a ketchup bottle. One with the 1/8 inch hole in the cap. Stand back a few feet and apply low and the dust will cover all leaves top and bottom with an even layer. Obviously stand upwind and or wear mask. For those who want to use it. This method is for cucumbers and all curcurbits.

I used to be a real "green" guy. Still don't like using chemicals but cant argue with their effectiveness. I have a shed with Sevin, RoundUp and Talstar.