BT and Spinosad - can it be boosted?

[JRinPA]

Please correct my understanding of this if necessary.
Spinosad and BT are both bacteria(um) that are a live organism. They are OMRI approved. They are sold in very price controlled quantities at set concentrations.

For spinosad it is .5% active in most concentrates. Then the BIG BOTTLE is 11.5% concentrate. It works out to,at most, 3.7 or 4.0 times cheaper than the little bottles. I forget which.

Question is, can I take a 0.5% by volume and mulitiply that? With ACT or ACVT, it is aerated to bloom the good stuff to a higher percentage, then applied. Can the same be done with Spinosad or BT to make it go further? I'm quite sure the OMRI $$ company is going to say no - that is why I ask here.

[karstopography]

I understand the Spinosad and Bt available as a pesticide are the toxin or toxins made by the bacterium and not the living bacteria itself. So what we get when we buy this product it isn’t anything alive that can be reproduced.

[JRinPA]

ahh interesting. I will have to read up on that. I thought it was the bacteria in an inert form. This is the first time with spinosad, pricey stuff.
I was wondering why some say BTk can withstand freeze in liquid form, and BTi in mosquito dunks is still working from my 5 year old shaker bottle.

[pepperhead212]

Even the liquid BTi is said to be good for 2 years, after opening and room temp storage. I have a section where I store it in the fridge, along with some other things, so they will last longer.

I am trying a new (to me) Bt this year - the Bonide Revitalize. The instructions say to use just 1 tsp of the liquid/gal of water. I'll find out how well it works on the various diseases.

[JRinPA]

So for spinosad they ferment the actual bacteria that originally came from an old sugar mill in the islands, use the bloom remnants and separate it into different parts, process it, and sell it heavily price controlled. Because if they sold just the original bacteria then anyone could bloom it and there would be less profit.

This is exactly why I have always considered OMRI to be just stamp of approval to join in on the big money . If it was to help the planet, it would be open source.

And for the BTk,

Do Btk products Contain Live Bacteria?

If you read most of the available information about Btk, it leaves you with a sense that these products contain bacteria, or bacterial spores, and when these are eaten by larvae, they cause death of the larvae, but this is not true.

The following is from the manufacturers of Safer’s Btk (personal communication), “Our Btk product does not contain living bacteria/spores/solids and these will not replicate on the plant surface. To complicate matters, there are other pesticide products that are live and replicate after application, Btk just happens to not be one of them.”