I cannot answer the 'how it works' question but I have seen it work. My eight-year long battle with aphids on my roses ended the day I started using corn meal under the plants. It has been six years since and no aphids. When I mentioned that to a local organic researcher he took me to his green house to show me something. He was doing an experiment with soils. He had three plants growing in 4-inch pots. The plants themselves were about 8 inches tall and the canopies of all three were touching. One of the plants had aphids all over it while the other two had none. The canopies were touching but the aphids did not make the trip over to the other two plants. I asked him what the difference was and he said it was the soil. He could not tell me what the three different soils were because it was on ongoing blind experiment where he did not know which plant was which, but the point was made that soils made the difference. I can say that we spent a long time talking about his experiments. From those discussions I would guess that all three pots started life in a generic bag of potting soil from Wal-Mart. To that he added compost to two of them and probably a product he sells called Texas Greensand and one called Vulcanite. I also judged the botany category at a regional science fair for about 20 years. During that time I saw numerous projects where the students were able to specify a plants' resistance to different pests or disease simply by exposing the plant to various vapors. One vapor they liked to use a lot was salicylic acid (methyl salicylate or oil of wintergreen). One of the particularly gifted students proved that these vapors worked at the genetic level by turning on or off certain genes that the plant uses to protect itself. He also proved that certain combination of vapors stimulated a dormant gene that nobody knew what it was there for. When you see a breakthrough in scientific understanding at the high school level, it can make the mundane science fair much more fun to do. That boy went on to win the international science fair. So if you want to know "exactly" how these things work, maybe I can connect you with that kid. I'm sure he's out of college now - or maybe working on his Ph.D. The midge lifecycle sounds like the thrips lifecycle. We can control thrips in the soil over the winter with beneficial nematodes applied in January. Our climate is so much warmer than most places that January may be too early for many of y'all.

Does anyone know where I can get spinosad in the OKC area, preferably near Edmond? I know I can order online, but need it now.

There is no real easy method of control for red lily beetle, it is more of an effort to manage the population however best you can and it is very labor-intensive. I've never seen red lily beetles here in OK but some folks may have them if they arrived on mail order lilies or such. The beneficial insects (parasitic wasps) that seem to be having success in controlling red lily beetles are, as far as I know, not available commercially yet in the USA. I believe it is the University of Rhode Island that has been experimenting with some European species of parasistic wasps and they've been releasing them on their own (not selling them to gardeners) and studying their effect on the red lily beetle population in the areas where the wasps have been released. They seem to be having some success, but the availability of those species of parasitic wasps commercially likely is years away still. Have you tried Spinosad? Some folks use it to control the red lily beetles either when they are in the soil or as larvae, using it both as a soil drench and to spray the plants. Other than that, if I had them, I'd hand-pick them and destroy them daily and search for and destroy the eggs as well. I wear disposable medical gloves when hand-picking pests and generally carry a plastic bowl of soapy water with me, dropping the hand-picked pests into the bowl to drown. As far as removing eggs from the undersides of leaves, I like to use a lint roller---I roll it over the underside of the leaf when I find eggs of pest insects and the roller pulls the insects right off the leaves. Then I strip that section of the sticky tape off the link roller, roll it up to enclose the eggs inside, and drop the bundle of sticky tape into the kitchen trash can to ensure the eggs go out with the trash. I know it would get tiresome to hand pick, but these pests are such a problem that it takes that sort of intense dedication to keep them to a manageable level. There's always neem, which works somewhat well on them, and if you get desperate enough, you could use systemic or non-systemic synthetic pesticides. It depends on how much time and effort you want to put into fighting them and I suppose it depends on how many lilies you have. I don't know if you've seen the webpage I'm going to link below, but I think it is a very thorough source of info about what works for red lily beetles, with some folks explaining their success. I'd never heard of using used coffee grounds to repel red lily beetles before, but if it works, why not use it? I noticed some folks have had success with DE. I don't use DE much in my garden any more but I like it when I used it. Many of us do use used coffee ground in our gardens or our compost all the time, so why not try using it to repel or deter the lily beetles? It might help and couldn't hurt. Spinosad, by the way, is available in several formulations---as a spray, as a dust and in some pelleted baits like Slug-Go Plus and in a fire ant bait called Come And Get It. I expect the spray would work best for red lily beetles. Red Lily Beetle Info from B&D Lilies Good luck in your battle with the lily beetles. Dawn

We get them really bad around here in late summer. I bought an expensive bottle of conserve three years ago and it's only down by a quarter bottle, so that's been worth it to me. I haven't used regular pesticides for anything during that time because I wanted to maintain a nice ecosystem in my garden. Spinosad on its own hasn't made any obvious difference to that. I've got bees, butterflies, ladybugs, dragonflies, lizards, birds, squirrels, frogs like crazy and about two million mosquitoes - urg. I'm really happy with it. Mind you, I am a very laid back gardener. In the spring come the aphids, early summer bring the June bugs (beetle), grasshoppers do their thing as do regular flower thrips. I ignore them and the issues sort themselves out. Except for thrips, who coat each flower in the hundreds and ruin at least one flush. That is annoying, but nothing can be done. I'm not going to run around spraying every flower or add poison to the soil. Doesn't work for these numbers anyway. BTDT. Best to disbud when it gets crazy, usually the second flush. Obviously none of that pertains to chilli thrips who are another beast entirely. I first had them in 2010, a minor epidemic, but didn't know what they were. In 2011, boy I learned quick because they went on a rampage that lasted for months. I had not recognized the early damage, so the numbers were able to swell and absolutely decimate my garden. I lost several plants that year, killed by CT. It happens so fast. Having battled these monsters several years running, I can spot them on peoples roses as I drive past their house. I spray the second I see the first little signs of damage and it knocks them down. They were determined this year and I sprayed three or four times, more than usual, but I had no big pruning to do, and no big epidemic.