Nemakill

[Bill Meyer]

Hi All,

In various places I am seeing people recommending Nemakill as if it's a proven product. It seems like each time I see it the claims about it increase. I just want to remind everybody that it is an untested product for the most part. It was only tested on pots of potting soil (not plants in pots) and on pieces of leaves in petri dishes in the AHS/Grewal research. It was not tested on plants in the ground or in pots, nor was it tested in the ground.

There is no evidence anywhere of any testing at all done by the people selling or promoting it. Since it is an "organic" product it is not required to undergo the rigorous testing that the EPA demands for pesticides. Many of these types of products that bypass all government testing requirements turn out to be ineffective and sometimes dangerous. Half of what's in the bottle is hidden as "inert ingredients", so we don't even know what's in there. Often there are chemicals hidden in the inerts that would not be allowed as organic if they were considered actives. Also, there seems to be very little information anywhere about Excelag, the company that makes it.

So if you are recommending this product with little or no knowledge about it, and none of us knows if it actually works on nematodes in plants, please keep in mind that there may be dangers we don't know about with this product. It has no track record at all.

If you are thinking about spending $75 for a product nobody has tested beyond a couple lab tests on potting soil and pieces of leaves, keep in mind that you are paying for the "privilege" of testing their product for them. They probably don't even know whether it will work on plants or even outdoors. Unless you want to test it for them, I recommend waiting to see if it actually works before spending that $75, since from what we know now it isn't any better than hydrogen peroxide, bleach, ammonia, boiling water, and insecticidal soap, all of which are way cheaper.


.........Bill Meyer

[Chris_W]

Thanks for the reminder, Bill. Yesterday at the Michigan Hosta Society meeting they mentioned this, and how great it was, and told people to make sure to buy it now if they can find it because next year it will only be available direct from the manufacturer. But I don't even know where you would find it now if you wanted your hostas to be the first guinea pigs in this test.

I'm frustrated that the AHS seems to really want to push this product with so little information about it out there and no supporting research or field tests on it that we can find.

[Tigger]

My understanding (as a member of the scientific advisory committee on this research) is that the whole-plant studies are being done this [growing] season. (Last season was for the more basic ground-wetting studies and cut-leaf studies). The nature of agricultural research: in order to get real-world data (even if lab-controlled), it's much easier to line your research up with the natural growing seasons.

Maybe this will work, maybe it will not. Stranger treatments for diseases (both human and plant) have been discovered. For example, who would have thought that a tea made from wormwood leaves would cure malaria? Or that the bark of a willow tree had a compound that helped with aches and pains?

Or, as Chris has indicated this year, that a Lysol disinfectant repels deer better than rotten eggs and garlic?

And if some early adopters want to try the product (and the producer or the AHS figures out some way to recover that field research), then more power to them. Of course there may be fools who say "I treated with Nemakill and so I don't have nematodes any more," but I expect most of these early adopters will have a more sanguine attitude.

Interestingly, some of the plants I isolated this year for potential special treatment aren't showing nemes at all? (In particular, I had a Teaspoon that I was going to divide in thirds, to treat one piece with hot water per Chris's instructions, one with Nemakill, and one control. But I'm not seeing streaks, so it's hard to know if I have picked a suitable test case.)

David

[Chris_W]

At the MHS meeting people said that the AHS research showed 100% kill in potted hostas. Do you know where that information came from Tigger?

[Bill Meyer]

David,

The reason I posted the above is that the AHS officers have been involved with these Nemakill people in some sort of arrangement to promote this stuff even though they don't know anything about it. In the last Hosta Journal, Rob Mortko and Cindy Deutekom, both AHS officers, wrote that it was tested on plants in pots. That wasn't true, as you seem to agree. Below is a cellphone pic taken at Grewal's presentation about his research. Not great picture quality, but you can see the cones with potting soil that the test was done on. Clearly those are not hostas in pots. Did your committee review that article before it was printed? That bit of misinformation seems to be the source of people thinking it works on plants.

Did you know that the Nemakill people are working with AHS officers to "develop a cure for HVX"? This is from AHS board minutes - "C. Deutekom mentioned that Dr. David Miles is researching a cure for Hosta HVX, and he is confident that he is on the right path for success. C. Deutekom is also doing some testing for him." I'm sure you know you can't "cure" plant viruses with some concoction of plant oils. Either that Miles guy has no idea what he's doing, or they are taking poorly informed AHS officers for a ride.

Then there's the handout prepared by the Midwest Regional Hosta Society, which is also run by AHS officers (Cindy Tomashek and Barbara Schroeder). In what seems to be a handout for the public it says "There is a new organic product that has been proven to be 100% effective in the treatment of Hosta Foliar Nematodes. This product is called NemaKill......This is the only product recommended for garden use by the recently published findings of the AHS funded study......"

http://www.midwesthostasociety.org/Host ... andout.pdf

That handout also says "The most important point in using this treatment method is that it is an organic chemical that has low toxicity." I think we can agree that the AHS people have no idea what's in Nemakill or how toxic it might be. Why are they promoting it to the gardening public as if they did?

Then there's the new Nemakill brochure which is sent out by them with several pages of the Hosta Journal, presumably with permission from Mortko and Deutekom. In the highlighted part they clearly try to convince people that the AHS supports their new claim that it gives "100% control of this pest in hosta".

Is your committee even aware that all this has been going on? The AHS officers seem to be running wild with some clear effort to promote this product that they know virtually nothing about. None of the above has a shred of truth in it. Are they being paid by the Nemakill people? It's fine for a few science-minded people like us to conduct backyard experiments, but there is a clear effort by the AHS to market this unknown stuff to society members as a proven cure.

.........Bill Meyer

SoilDrenchTest.jpg (26.87 KiB) Viewed 4017 times

[Treepep]

Nemascam is not effective in the field and as Bill has stated it is only available for sale because excel ag is not held to the stringent standards this industry strives for. It is incredibly toxic to amphibians and arthropods as well as extremely toxic to many perennials. Use of this product outside of a greenhouse is ill advised. The good news is it works great even at the lowest rate to kill liverwort but at over a hundred dollars for per gallon of concentrate i think there are more economical options.

[lessa's dh]

Interesting to see the bashing going on out there but as yet I have not seen any indication or succinct information that Nemakill is as bad as "Treepep" (who mysteriously just appeared a few days ago) - makes me wonder in reading the previous posts if someone has an axe to grind and is hiding.

[Tigger]

Ooh, look. A troll.

[Bill Meyer]

Or maybe somebody who knows more about Nemakill.

Or did you mean Art?

[lessa's dh]

LMAO@Bill

[redcrx]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1YiIiPUQR8

[Bill Meyer]

Interesting to see the bashing going on out there but as yet I have not seen any indication or succinct information that Nemakill is as bad as "Treepep" (who mysteriously just appeared a few days ago) - makes me wonder in reading the previous posts if someone has an axe to grind and is hiding.

Hi Art,

Leaving aside for the moment who is hiding behind an alias (not me), I find Treepep to be a lot more believable than a bunch of hucksters who are trying to con poorly informed AHS officers into believing they will next have a magic herbal cure for HVX. Is that one available in Canada yet? Haven't seen it here so far. Wonder if that will cost $75 a quart too.

There is no clear information on Nemakill because it is being marketed directly to the public without any of the testing required by the Environmental Protection Agency for non-"organic" products or even any voluntary testing by the manufacturer. It uses loopholes in our regulatory system here in the US to avoid any testing requirements. They even state that it is not registered with the EPA and not considered a pesticide, so they don't have to test or even keep records. Does Canada require any testing on products like this?

Treepep, whoever they are, at least implies that they have used Nemakill or knows someone who has and says they know something about how it performs in outdoor applications. If what they said is true the product certainly deserves to be bashed, along with people who claim to know about how it performed in tests that were not really done.

Note the language in the Midwest Regional "educational" piece, which was written by Barry Ankney who is now also an AHS officer. He says "This is the only product recommended for garden use by the recently published findings
of the AHS funded study", and claims it is "proven to be 100% effective" and even has "low toxicity". That isn't just a forum discussion - it's an "educational" brochure designed for the public, based on pure made-up nonsense from people who have no idea if what they're saying is true or not.

Non-profit educational societies shamelessly promoting products with false information is something that deserves to be bashed in my opinion. Common sense should tell you that if the product actually worked and was environmentally sound, people wouldn't need to make things up about it when they're trying to get people to buy it.

......Bill Meyer (not an alias)

[Chris_W]

It sounds to me that Treepep has purchased and used Nemakill, and I kind of wish they would have simply stated this and shared their experiences a little more diplomatically, but I am glad to hear any kind of experiences with it in the real world.

And I also suspect that Treepep doesn't want to reveal their name due to any potential backlash.

[Tigger]

And I wish said troll (tree frog?) would back up his or her own statements with scientific studies that would be published in peer-reviewed journals, as Dr. Grewal's will be. Otherwise he or she is just shooting off his or her mouth, anonymously, with about as much value as a Donald Trump campaign promise.

If you want to take Excel Ag to task for not conducting (or at least publicizing) a full tox study, go right ahead, but put them head to head with all the other producers of "safer/organic" garden chemicals. But the AHS funded Dr. Grewal to investigate control of nematodes in hostas (whether said controls were traditional or non-traditional agrichemicals. While that research is not complete (research rarely is), it has been conducted properly, given the fairly meager funds (really) that the AHS supplied.

David

[Bill Meyer]

David,

I hate to point out the obvious, but you post as Tigger, which isn't exactly your name either. Earlier you mentioned you intended to test Nemakill yourself. If you do and find the same things Treepep did and report them here in this forum, how would that be different? I for one would take your warning about it seriously, and I think it's wise to take Treepep's seriously. This product is being pushed to people now, not sometime in the future after research on it is done.

I don't see the connection to the Grewal research that you seem to be making. Other than AHS officers completely misrepresenting the research it doesn't come into this. I'm sure it was conducted properly by Grewal and his people, but it certainly wasn't reported properly by those officers. The AHS then let the Nemakill people use their false information to peddle their product, even going so far as to allow them to use the actual Journal article in their advertising. A copy of the article, used with AHS permission, accompanied that brochure above in sales pitches to nurseries. Then the AHS people have been actively promoting the product as effective based on their own misinformation, and have convinced others to do so.

If anyone is making a mockery of the Grewal study it is those officers. I could have bought it was an innocent mistake in the article but instead of a retraction and apology, they charged forward leaving the truth of the study behind in their zeal to promote a product they know nothing about. Whatever is going on there they clearly misrepresented the study for purposes of their own. What Grewal is doing is science, but whatever those officers are up to sure isn't.

.........Bill Meyer

[Tigger]

To point out the obvious, I generally sign my posts with my first name and my handle here is nearly a homonym of my last name. And I currently have over 2500 posts here. Hardly anonymous, especially compared to someone who makes a single inflammatory unsigned post and then disappears. The definition of "troll," in internet parlance.

I have inserted into the scientific panel's discussion of Grewal's final report a point about Excel Ag using preliminary information in their promotional material that appears to have the AHS stamp of approval. Note that I am involved only with the scientific panel and not with the AHS "officers," so I have no knowledge of any relationship between individuals of the AHS and Excel Ag.

Again, I am not at liberty to discuss the final report results, which the AHS will be summarizing in brief in the next Journal (and publishing in full when completed), but I would suggest backing off the inflammatory rhetoric with respect to the research until the data are released publicly.

David

[Bill Meyer]

In your efforts to be "non-inflammatory", you cloud the issue. The Nemakill people didn't use "preliminary information" - they used grossly incorrect information about the primary use for their product in their sales brochures. Let's call it what it is. "Preliminary information" could be correct information, which you know it wasn't. And the AHS provided (not "appeared" to provide) not only bad information but PDF copies of the article to them for their advertising, thus associating the AHS and the research with the product.

That's not a problem with the research itself, but most people who read it will think it was. Only a few people knew it wasn't tested on plants, and that it was wrongly reported. We aren't talking about a typo here. It has not been corrected or retracted in the year since the summary was released.

As I'm sure you know, the main thing everybody who paid for it is waiting to hear is whether there is a way they can get nematodes out of their plants and maybe out of their gardens. Remember that the Grewal research was sold by Mortko to the sponsors as "finding a solution" to nematodes. The sponsors have a right to honest answers about what their money paid for, I'm sure you'll agree.

The false information about the research does have real world consequences. I saw recently that one local is planning a group purchase of Nemakill, apparently based on the Mortko/Deutekom misinformation, and that another already did do that. I wonder if other societies are. It has been touted at several of the sponsoring societies as Grewal saying it was 100% effective on nematodes in potted plants. Yes, they are jumping the gun and not waiting until the research is published, but they have no reason to not believe the official summary from the AHS.

You brought up the unsavory connection with ExcelAg, but what about the false information put out in the summary a year ago. Playing along with it is frankly just a bad as participating in it. I know you and some others on that committee are ethical people, so where does ethics come into this? It's hard to believe that nobody noticed something as big as saying testing was done on plants in pots when it wasn't, along with the "results" of those non-existant tests.

Regarding Treepep's post, your unprovoked attack on him/her and the hostility behind it are the main reason people post under pseudonyms. I'm only interested in the information they provided. That they mentioned a professional price and not the retail price makes me think they own or work for a nursery business and don't want to bring the business name into the discussion. I don't think there's any way to find a professional price for the stuff on the internet. Real world experience has value too.

......Bill Meyer

[Bill Meyer]

I should mention that I posted a link to this on the American Hosta Society Facebook page, pointing out Treepep's comment about the toxicity and ineffectiveness of the Nemakill product. As this is the first review anyone has posted anywhere, I thought people should be aware of it since the product may well be as toxic as they said it is. A product that bad could be marketed because of the loopholes in the regulatory system, and the AHS' open endorsement of it has clearly been leading people to purchase it.

If anyone had a different (or similar) experience with it, hopefully they would comment and perhaps we could all learn more. I'm a big believer in the value of customer reviews like we see on Amazon, Ebay, Yelp, Garden Watchdog, and many other sites. I think that openness, transparency, and freedom of speech are one of the great things the internet has brought us. It's a lot harder these days for bad products to be marketed than it used to be, or for dishonest businesses to operate.

The post was quickly taken down.

[Tigger]

Bill, I know you are generally in the camp of "nematodes: get used to them," but it seems bizarre to hope for a product that is effective and yet non-toxic. The holy grail of pesticides, I guess, if you imagine a quadrant analysis with "effectiveness against target" on one axis and "broad toxicity" on the other.

Treepep claims Nemakill is ineffective against FNs (field/garden-grown, at least, although no real evidence is presented) and that it is highly toxic to arthropods and amphibians (again, no evidence). He/she starts the post calling the product "Nemascam," basically lighting fire to the situation, where we had (I believe), been having a fairly civil discussion. So I don't consider my attack (calling him/her out as a troll) as unprovoked, per my definition above. If he/she wants to modify his or her approach to this discussion, I am happy to listen. As you well know, the AHS does seem to like burning bridges, so I can respect a degree of anonymity if the argument for such is presented by the author.

Clearly, the broader toxicity of Nemakill warrants further investigation, recognizing that in no way do I ever think that "organic pesticide" equates to "safe." I'd love to know the juju that makes this mix of organic extracts work. But again, the AHS-funded work was to look at a variety of possible solutions to the nematode problem; Nemakill rose to the top ranks of treatments (where ZeroTol is not available to home gardeners).

David

[Bill Meyer]

David,

We aren't discussing the performance of Nemakill, but rather the false claims about it. None of us, save perhaps Treepep, know anything about its performance in anything other than petri dishes and potting soil in a Baermann Funnel. Not plants. Nemakill killed on contact in those, as did bleach, ammonia, Zerotol, boiling water, and likely many other things would. Nothing remarkable about that. Contact kill of nematodes is easy because they're pretty fragile. We learned that long ago.

None of those things can kill them inside plants, including Nemakill. Even the Nemakill people don't claim it has any effect on ones inside plants. It's about as "magic" a product as bleach from all we actually know at this point. As an aside, I'm sure you remember that clove oil was ineffective on nematodes as per Grewal's 2002 study, so that isn't the "juju" here.

As for toxicity I'm sure you are familiar with the adage "the dose is the poison". Even water, so necessary to human life, can fatally poison a human being and has. If Treepep used Nemakill at recommended rates, and found it to be "incredibly" and "extremely" toxic, then that is very unusual in this day and age. Certainly the EPA would never allow a product like that to market if it had jurisdiction over it, but no agency has jurisdiction over "organic" products. The banned products like the organophosphates could never be described as anywhere near that bad.

The problem I bring up has to do with all who read the official AHS summary of Grewal's study were told it was tested on plants and was 100% effective. No such test was done, so that summary was pure fiction. I use Mortko and Deutekom's names specifically to make it clear it was not Grewal saying that. I'm sure he never would misrepresent a study like that. People, many of whom provided the financing for the study, were deceived into thinking that Nemakill does things it never did. In fact the very things everybody would hope it did. Hopefully you can see something wrong with that.

The Nemakill people are on record at the AHS as trying to convince the officers that they are working on a cure for HVX. Since to my knowledge you can't "cure" a plant virus, I think that could honestly be called a scam. Since they do not make claims about Nemakill killing nematodes in plants, I would agree there's no scam there on their part. They just repeat what the AHS officers said, even though they may know it isn't true. I'm sure their lawyers have advised them against false claims. I can understand though if someone purchased the product in the belief that the AHS endorsed it and the Grewal study truly showed "100% control in hostas", then found it not only ineffective but highly toxic that they could feel they were scammed.

I do think you confuse the relationships among the various parties. There's the study performed by Grewal, the AHS (society), certain AHS officers in term-limited positions, and the Nemakill people. The bad behavior is only on the part of those few officers. It gives the AHS and the Grewal study a bad name. Certainly you and your committee should be writing the next summary - not those officers. They are just nursery owners with no scientific background, who at best did not understand what Grewal was doing. I'm not going into possible at worst scenarios.

I am in the "get used to them" camp and so, for that matter is Grewal. He'll be the first to tell you, as he has me, that you cannot eliminate them from the garden even with the now-banned products that were the most effective like Nemacur and Temik. Huge amounts of money were put into nematode control research over most of the last century and no magic bullet found. This study won't find one that all the others somehow missed.

........Bill Meyer