Diatomaceous Earth For Weavils

[ekul]

This current house i'm living in is FULL of weavils. Everything gets eaten by them.

Anyone ever tried dosing their sacks with a teaspoon of Diatomaceous Earth? Its used as a filtering agent so i assume it doesnt have any off flavours, plus it will have plenty of time to drop out in the cube and in the fermenter.

I've tried topping up a drum with CO2 and that does work well, however I'd love to be able to just open a sack, chuck in a teaspoon of DE and not worry about weavils.

 

[klangers]

DE is carcinogenic if breathed in, but not if it's used properly as a filtration medium.

Since pouring grain about the place generates dust, it might be prudent to wear a dust mask if you intend to dose your grain with DE.

 

[zoigl]

In my experience, weavils seem to thrive in warm, moist conditions, take these conditions away and your weavils should disappear. You will need to fog the area using a machine or perhaps one of those pressure packs available in the big supermarkets, where you pull the pin, lock up the house, and leave for a set time.
Freezing your contaminated items can work. Otherwise, if you can cook/boil the grain then sieve them from the surface. If there are not too many, you can ignore them, otherwise the best bet might be to chuck the lot to the chooks and start all over again.
Isolate each grain in sealed containers to help prevent cross infection, I believe that all grains contain weavils, they just need the right conditions to hatch.
I just chucked my first batch to the chooks, first for many years.

 

[wynnum1]

Diatomaceous Earth is silica would think any fine dust would give SILICOSIS .
How big are weavils vacuuming is said to be good to get rid of fleas is there a way of removing weavils with a vacume cleaner. .

 

[HBHB]

DE is reasonably effective in that it cuts the waxy coating on their legs and bodies and makes the little suckers bleed to death. Also makes them susceptible to surface sprays. trials in grain storage silos where phosphene gas became innefective shows it is helpful, but not a definitive solution.

 

[Mr B]

Gotta get rid of the moths.

The sticky traps you get at Coles etc work well, they contain a pheremone to attract the moths.

We have had outbreaks a couple of times, these will stop the weevil cycle.

Of course, they may be coming in on your grain, but they above would also be good to have in place.

 

[Zorco]

(Post deleted due to brain less than working)

Not the first time. Wont be the last.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Sounds like Dieldrin is your only answer

 

[MHB]

The moths are the adult form of mealy moth, the grubs and their little silky nests are what you find in the grain.
Weevils are beetles and its the adult that eats your malt.

There are proper gassing tablets, they used to be easy to get but I think you need a training certificate to buy them now (the way its going you will need a certificate 3 to fart soon).
If you have a good produce store or ag supply near you it would be well worth asking them.
Mark

 

[HBHB]

Phosphene

 

[MHB]

I'm sure you mean Phosphine, (PH3) its is slightly different to Phosphene which might confuse the weevils but I doubt it will kill them. Mind you there are plenty of different species of weevils I think my favourite was always the "confused bean borer" could have found the cause of all that confusion.
And yes it was always my weapon of choice.
Mark