Comparing Similar Products

There are many, similar products on the market, and people often wonder “which is the best?”, but “best” can be taken in several ways. The point of this article is to help you make a logical choice based upon the pertinent facts.

I am a big believer in azadirachtin-based pesticides because they are safe to use, effective on both insects and mites, and – unlike most pesticides – also affect eggs and juveniles. Azadirachtin is the active ingredient in neem oil, but I recommend against using oils on orchids as the oil can clog the velamen on the roots, limiting water and nutrient uptake, and if applied when the plants are warm or in direct sunlight, can lead to severe burning. But there are more reasons to avoid it. The table below lists four concentrated azadirachtin pesticides and neem oil.

Looking at the cost-per-ounce, one might be tempted to use neem oil, but it has a low concentration of active ingredient.. (It typically ranges from 0.04% to 0.1% azadirachtin, but I have selects the highest to give it the most potential benefit.) I am most experienced with Azamax, so used that as my “standard” for comparison], with 1.2% azadiractin. In order to match that concentration with neem oil, you’d literally have to use 120 times the amount per gallon, making it the least cost-effective of all the products.

By contrast, the Azatin-O product is the most cost effective, because, despite it’s price per ounce being higher than some of the others, because it has nearly 4 times the azadirachtin content, it requires less per gallon.

This same sort of analysis can be done on fertilizers and other products, as well. For example, it may be convenient to purchase a liquid version of the MSU fertilizer, but at approximately $24 for 8 ounces of the 3% nitrogen solution, in order to make a 100 ppm N solution, you would need to use 2.52 teaspoons per gallon, costing $1.26. If you bought the 13.2% N powder at $21 for one pound, you would need 0.57 teaspoons per gallon at a cost of less than $0.04.