Bonide Captain Jack's Deadbug Brew, 16 oz Concentrate Outdoor Insecticide and Mite Killer for Organic Gardening

So I reviewed a Zevo insect trap earlier and now I'm reviewing this Captain Jack's Deadbug Brew. I also bought this for a fungus gnat problem after watching a youtube video of a doc who said this works. Well, it works. I've seen a marked decrease in fungus gnats and I use 2 ounces to a gallon of distilled water and water my plants with a sprinkler can so it can really soak into the soil. There is no smell and it's very easy to mix and apply. A small bottle goes a long way. I've watered my plants 3 times now with it and, along with the Zevo trap, I think I'm finally getting somewhere.

Our orchids are blooming again!! We defeated the thrips using this product and now have some wonderful blooms here in Florida. Previously, a spike would emerge from the plant and get about three or four inches long and then turn black and shrivel. I applied this product weekly for four of five weeks and now the thrips have stopped eating the emerging blooms on the vandas and cattleyas. I understand I need to keep on top of these pests and also mix in alternative pest control methods because from the reading I've done thrips are notoriously difficult to control/eliminate. All good for now though.

This stuff works. If you have tried all other organic remedies like dish soap, oil, cayenne pepper/capsicum, Neem, Organicide, etc, and nothing worked. Then this is your best bet while still being organic friendly. Anything stronger and you have to start looking into true chemical pesticides which as we are all finding out these days, is something that should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. I had a quadruple invasion of stink bugs, cabbage loopers, leaf miners/borers, web worms, and the occasional aphid (but they werent really doing much harm compared to the other four). My garden was being decimated and while you can never reverse the damage, you can stop it in its tracks and allow things to recover. I sprayed this stuff over everything I planted, even if it wasnt damaged so the bugs had no where to run. Sure enough things improved and all of it recovered! Ive had sprays that kill or burn leaves, cause them to curl, and even mutate fruits. This spray did none of that and rooted out of all 4 pests! There MIGHT have been a few leaf miners that survived, but I was never sure if it was old damage or new, but even if they had survived, the new damage was minimal. After my garden recovered, I lightly sprayed 1x every 2 weeks over the soil and bottom of the plants just as a barrier and as a precaution. This stuff seems to dissolve in water fairly easily, so if it rains heavily in your area, you may have different results and have a need to adjust accordingly. If youve tried everything in the organic section, look no more and grab this!

This stuff works kills horned catapillars on my tomatoes and they didn’t come back!

Saved my entire lawn from turning to dirt. This year we have had an insane amount of armyworms eating everything in their path. Sadly that included my yard and flower bed. They are a tremendous pain and not much is out there about how to kill them without just killing everything that you spray. I didn't want to kill the helpful bugs and shoo the birds away because there would be nothing to eat. So I researched, and researched, and researched.... My uncle who works with organic farming informed me of thuricide. This is also a Bonide product which would do the same job at killing the caterpillars that were destroying our yard. However, the problem with thuricide is that it washes off very easily. You would have to re-apply after each rain due to it running off. However spinosad (which is the active ingredient in Captain Jacks) does not wash off as easily. Both are all natural which makes them safe for the family and pets shortly after you spray. It states that it will work up to 4 weeks. I sprayed my yard going on 2 weeks ago and have yet to see them come back. My yard is actually beginning to turn green once again and slowly fill in all of the totally dead spots. It recommends that you spray in late afternoon or early morning for armyworms. The reasoning is that the bug lays low during the day and comes out to feed later in the afternoon and are still active in the morning. I sprayed my yard in the afternoon and within 3 days there were no longer any sign of the armyworms. I can once again water my lawn and fertilize it to bring it back to life before winter. Which is important for me since my lawn is new and I want to get it established before it quits growing. I don't want spring to come and everything be dead....

I've heard of Spinosad and thought I'd give this product a try. It has met and exceeded my expectations! So far, this product has done a great job of diminishing insect pressure on many of my garden crops. I bought this initially to combat an area of excessive flea beetle infestation that made me leave an area of my garden fallow because the flea beetles would simply overwhelm all young brassicas and any leafy crops like kale, spinach, arugula or even beets, radishes and turnips as well as young eggplants. Using neem and dusting with diatomaceous earth on the young plants seemed to stress the plants almost as badly as the beetle damage. I made a control area of seven types of produce using neem and diatomaceous earth on 1/3 of the plots, spinosad on 1/3 and nothing but watering on the final 1/3. The final 1/3 had nearly 70% loss at the beginning month where started plants were planted, the neem/diatom area had around a 40% loss, the spinosad area had only 10% loss. That's a HUGE difference! So, I decided to try spinosad on my squashes in a community garden plot that's notorious for squash beetles infesting from neighboring plots where fellow gardeners don't manage their crops as well as I would like them to. I've found that a neem oil solution with a little soap will control the squash bug population rather well - at least eliminating all the young. However, the adult squash bug is not affected by the neem (they don't like it, but it does not kill them), so I've had to manually dispose of the adults in a jar of soapy water, one-by-one - a tedious endeavor. After the success of the spinosad on the flea beetle problem, I tried the brew on 3 of my squashes. The adult squash bugs will become disabled within 2 to 5 minutes and eventually die - all the young are eliminated within minutes of a single spraying. And the squash plant leaves itself do not seem to be affected by the spray. Neem oil solution tends to have a negative effect on the leaves if applied too often - I'm assuming it's because it is oily and clogs the respiration pores in the leaves. I'm not seeing any effect using the spinosad. I'm liking this product so much, I just bought another bottle since I'll be running out here before the season is done.

completely eliminated a thrips infestation that was plaguing my house plants for a year. i tried beneficial predators and all sorts of other sprays, nothing else got rid of them. one treatment of this across all my plants and they are gone. i am very pleased.

People who grow things organically say that this is a good thing to use for pest control. Unfortunately this didn’t work for my issues with thrips or spider mites. I used it in a closed greenhouse. My friend uses it on his plants and highly recommends it but he uses it mixed with horticultural oil at the highest recommended amount. I believe that amount is 4TBS per gallon. However, in my hot, dry desert heat, if I use horticultural oil in temperatures above even 72 degrees, the leaves on all my plants drop off and I lose some so I can’t do that. My other friend lives near the ocean and she said that she experienced the same thing using the horticultural oil. She just tried this Captain Jacks by itself recently and said that it didn’t work for her thrip issues. She called a pest professional. He told her that Captain Jack’s has only 1.1% of the active ingredient but there is a product that has 11% of the active ingredient so she is going to try that. It makes me wonder if I could just try upping the dose of this product so that it might work? If I can get this product to work at a stronger dose, it will be a lot cheaper than other pesticides out there for thrips and spider mites. I also tried this as a drench for a pest issue of springtails in the soil. I used it ant 1 ounce per gallon but gave plants 3-4 feedings of it over an 2 week period. I have not seen springtails since then annd it’s been a month annd an half since that time. I also noticed that during this time my issues with fungus gnats COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED which was GREAT. So, it appears to kill fungus gnat larvae which eat roots of our plants in the soil. I appreciate that it is all natural, friendly to people and animals. The smell is minimal especially when compared to other products with the same purpose. It looks like a thick, white colored cream. The size is good for the cost overall. So, I can say that it works as a drench for pests in soil like springtails and fungus gnat larvae. But it doesn’t work for the biggest issue I have here: thrips and spider mites. So, I’m giving it 3 stars.