Catnip as a insect repellent

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Countryside : One Thread

There was an article in the Chicago sun times (tuesday aug.28)on catnip being 10 times better then deet as insect repellent. It said it works good on most insects including the bighting flies, roaches, skeeters (great for a horses and better for dairy because no poison around the milk. I think the university of Iowa is doing the study. Products should be on the market within a year. Perhaps someone has time to see if article is online somewhere. Anyone here ever use catnip for this. My brother grows catnip for his cats and it grows like a weed. I think article said catnip is in the mint family.

-- ed (edfrhes@aol.com), August 29, 2001

Answers

Forgive my spelling on above post lol. I did a net search and could not find this article. This could be a great alternitive to poisons. I wonder how it works repelling ticks.

-- ed (edfrhes@aol.com), August 29, 2001.

here's the link A herbal plant in the mint family that is grown commercially as well as in the wild, catnip's stimulating effect on cats is unexplained. Some people use the leaves in tea, as a folk treatment for fevers, colds, cramps and migraines, as a meat tenderizer and to make a yellow dye.

Peterson said because of its capability in repelling insects, only small amounts of catnip oil would have to be used in any potential repellent product, while DEET is a chemical that some users find causes rashes, swelling and eye irritation. - Reuters

News as it happens... http://www.news24.com

-- ed (
edfrhes@aol.com), August 31, 2001.


I tried that link and couldn't make it work. Do you have the url?

Martha

-- Martha Vinson (mlvinson@yahoo.com), September 04, 2001.



o Chicago - Catnip, which mysteriously creates euphoria in cats, is an effective insect repellent, according to Iowa State University scientists.

In a paper presented to the American Chemical Society meeting in Chicago this week, entomologists Chris Peterson and Joel Coats said they have sought a patent for the use of the catnip oil nepetalactone as a repellent for bothersome pests such as mosquitoes and cockroaches.

Nepetalactone, which gives catnip its odor, was found to be 10 times more effective than the popular insect repellent diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET). In experiments at their Ames, Iowa, laboratory, the scientists found a greater percentage of mosquitoes were repelled by the catnip extract than by DEET.

"It might simply be an irritant, or they just don't like the smell," Peterson said in a statement. Nepetalactone also repelled a common type of cockroach and so might hold potential for the home pesticide market.

A herbal plant in the mint family that is grown commercially as well as in the wild, catnip's stimulating effect on cats is unexplained. Some people use the leaves in tea, as a folk treatment for fevers, colds, cramps and migraines, as a meat tenderizer and to make a yellow dye.

Peterson said because of its capability in repelling insects, only small amounts of catnip oil would have to be used in any potential repellent product, while DEET is a chemical that some users find causes rashes, swelling and eye irritation. - Reuters

-- ed (edfrhes@aol.com), September 04, 2001.


Will it keep ants out of my houseplants?

-- Vanessa (tvhayes@earthlink.net), April 14, 2002.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ