Snails, snails and more snails! Argh!

[hm8080]

Hi all, I don't know how growing conditions are in more temperate and colder regions but right now, here in the tropics we get buckets of rain even minute. And with wet weather come gazillions of snails. Just look at the damage done to my phals!





The above are my phal seedlings from compot (I did post a link about my phal seedlings in the forum sometime ago) More photos and description here:
Sarawak Lens: Bloody snails!


And then here's the damage done to my adult plants in the shade house!





More photos and description here:
Sarawak Lens: Nonstop rain and more snail damage!

It's a never ending problem and with the heavy rains everyday, I can't place snail baits in the shade house, I just have to be diligent and check on the plants myself and pick off the snails at night.

[digitalgate]

and dawn ! that the period they are active.

[Stelios]

sorry to hear you have an infestation of them. So far i only once found a slug on my orchids i was summering outside and now that i've seen how destructive they can be... i am thinking not to summer my cyms outside this summer.

[FLBob]

Try placing bits of fruit around, check under the fruit, they will tend to hang out there and make your hand picking and squishing a bit easier.

[-k-]

Oh No... devestating
Gah.. Hope your able to get that problem under control

[rodbender]

You can also sprinkle diatomaceous powder around your plant areas for some reason snails and slugs avoid the stuff. Its nontoxic and works for me.

[lmartiny]

I hate snails. That first pict is a biggy snail. There are pet safe snail pellets available. A saucer of beer will attrach them. I'm hoping our protracted, unusual freeze took care of many of them for this coming summer. That and mosquitos and wasps.

[Schlyne]

Oh no! Good luck...Bring on the saucers, and fruit I guess Your poor phals

[Brooke]

Lynn you are funny - slugs and snails laugh at winter.

Brooke

[crittermom]

I wish I could get some snails! My Blue tongued skink lizard LOVES to eat snails. You can borrow him if you'd like. I'm sure he'd cruise throught the greenhouse and slurp them all up until he was sick. It's so dry here, I hardly ever see a snail. I can't believe the damage they did to your poor orchids though, yikes! Good luck in getting rid of the little buggers.

[tclover]

"Robert Hollingsworth of the United States Department
of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Hilo,
Hawaii, and his colleagues were testing caffeine
sprays against the coqui frog, an introduced species
that infests potted plants. They also noticed that a 1
to 2 percent caffeine solution killed nearly all the
slugs and snails within two days. Concentrations as
low as 0.01 percent put the pests off their dinner. A
cup of instant coffee contains about 0.05 percent
caffeine, and brewed coffee has more."

Link: http://web1.msue.msu.edu/mastergarde...GreenScene.pdf

Anybody try coffee to kill snail and slug?

[rcb]

tclover - during my huge slug problem last summer I set out used coffee grinds. I'm not sure if it killed them, but they definitely came and ate them - you could see the slime trails through the grinds.

[lmartiny]

I did srpinkle some coffee grounds. But not consistently and didn't really follow it.

Brooke, I hope you are wrong, but if not, where do they hide? "I shall seek them out."

Crittermom; want some snails???? (may be some restricts on that)

[NicC]

I used coffee leftovers to treat orchid snails in a Vanda. These are much smaller than the big one in picture #1. I drenched the medium with coffee. The article referred to above used a very strong concentration of caffeine, much stronger than coffee. I bought some caffeine tablets (NoDoz) to try and make a strong concentration but since others had just used coffee, I tried that and it worked. That would treat the ones in the medium. Those on the leaves and stems can be removed by hand. The problem is preventing them from coming in from the environment...a much bigger challenge.
Nick

[PocoGigio]

Had itty-bitty snail chews on my Vanda spike. Brewed a pot of coffee. After saving a cup for myself, let it cool, put it in a spray bottle. Just before the lights went out I sprayed the Vanda (didn't think of a drench). No more bites out of the spike. No visible harm to the Vanda. Hmmmmm. I'm sold. Beats chemicals.

[NancyH]

I must have been comotose for a few weeks. I would go into my greenhouse and see the telltale signs of slug/snail damage. I would check all over and pick the ones I found and throw them out, but I never did the better treatment of beer in shallow saucers. After all the picking I have still found around 20 small slugs floating in the beer. I had NO idea I had such an infestation. So many babies, so many to grow up and ruin my orchids! It's kinda like mice. Once you see one in your house there are most likely more secretly scurring about!