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[Sunshine]

WARNING: Nicotine is highly poisonous! The lethal dose for the average sized adult male is approximately 50mg.

10% nicotine solution contains 100mg/mL. One tiny syringe is enough to kill two average grown men, or at the very least make them sick enough to go to the hospital. Do not experiment with nicotine concentrates if you do not have safety equipment and the knowledge necessary to handle it. It seems that average commercial nicotine concentrates have upwards of 400mg/mL, enough to make even me, a person with high nicotine tolerance and ample experience with the chemical, too nervous to even consider experimenting with it.

I have some old tobacco laying around and a ton of 10% nicotine solution and I was wondering if anyone has experience using tobacco/nicotine as an insecticide. I did a little digging but didn't find any solid guides on how much to dilute it or what the minimum effective concentration is. Here are a few quotes I found on various websites;

My grandfather grew tobacco on his farm in Michigan. He dried it in the old corn crib. A rain barrel sat next to the barn. He would put a half pound of cured leaf into the 30 gallon barrel and let the sun steep it in the captured rainwater (that's one ounce of chewing grade tobacco per 1.875 gallons of water). No wetting agent (soap). Try a foliar spray instead of soap - a lot healtier for the plant and wets well too.

in my outdoor garden i had good luck with 100 butts and i gallon. approximately.

That's disgusting^^ I wouldn't want to use butts, even if I had them. Especially on food crops.

[EIRN]

I have sucess in using tobaco as insecticide.
Usually I put 100g of comercial tobaco in 1L of water and some coconut soap (little quantity).
Wait for 24 hours, filter the solution....ready.
Must use in a few days...
in a few days the solution will begin to ferment and get a nasty smell

[nobody]

Be careful using tobacco on Solanaceae plants. They are quite easily infected with Tobacco Mosaic Virus, a nasty thing to have to deal with in the garden. Finding another source of nicotine would probably be a bit safer, like e-cig juice.

Caffeine is also a nice insecticide, especially for mealy bugs.

[t_tristani2002]

You may already know this, it just reminded me since your using natural plant methods to care for your other plants, you can use weeping willow branches/foliage boiled in water as a natural rooting hormone. Just thought I'd share.

[Ian Morris]

My great grandmother used tobacco to get rid of moles.  We would search the yard for the openings in tunnels and she would chew a little plug of tobacco and leave it there in the opening.  Apparently the critters would eat it and die.

RE Toxicity:  My uncle and I were just having a conversation on how/why/if nicotine solutions were regulated for the e-cig/vaporizer market.  I cannot imagine having access to such dangerous materials without some extreme regulations.

-Ian