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Post by sykosarah on Mar 14, 2014 22:14:41 GMT
I didn't see a thread on how to get rid of common CP pests, so I decided to start one.
first off is mites. Don't bother with insecticides here, they don't work on mites all that well (no idea why, they just don't). There are specific mitacides, but they will often harm more sensitive CPs and living sphagnum moss, so they are best avoided. A nice way to get rid of them without chemicals is probably drowning; leaving the plant, pot and all, under water for an hour or two should drown them, but to be safe you can go longer (any CP in which the drowning method is doable can withstand being underwater for quite some time, some even weeks). Mites can't swim. However, it is important that whatever you decide to do, you put the infected pot in quarantine as well as any pots that were nearby; some mites can spread really fast.
But before you go through all that, you should identify if you have a mite problem to begin with.
1. Mites have eight legs. If you catch a suspicious bug and after examining it only count 6, it is something else. Although, given how small they can be, you'd probably need a magnifying glass and a strong stomach, because some things really shouldn't be seen close up.
2. They don't move fast and, when threatened, will often stop moving completely. Which is really annoying if it is the green kind.
3. They can be red, orange, green, black, and even clear. They are all mites and they all must die.
4. While webs being present pretty much guarantee a mite infestation (or some clever spider noticing how all the bugs like to go to your plant XD), the lack of them doesn't mean you don't have mites. They just don't always make them.
5. They like to go after new growth the most, both young leaves and flower buds can be destroyed as they suck out the moisture like nasty little plant vampires. Having new leaves suddenly turn black or die off prematurely can be a warning sign.
I hope some people will find this helpful!
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Post by Aidan on Mar 14, 2014 22:56:06 GMT
Don't bother with insecticides here, they don't work on mites all that well (no idea why, they just don't). Mites are not insects and so insecticides will be ineffective. 3. They can be red, orange, green, black, and even clear. They are all mites and they all must die. Most mites are harmless. Look hard enough and you'll probably find some on every plant. Treatment is only necessary if damage becomes apparent.
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Post by sykosarah on Mar 15, 2014 19:34:14 GMT
Sorry, I have had some bad experiences with the things, so I am a bit... violent towards them. And I am well aware that mites aren't insects, I just don't know why insect poison isn't harmful to them.
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Post by Aidan on Mar 15, 2014 21:16:41 GMT
Insecticides are targeted to insects and will therefore mostly have little to no effect upon mites (pyrethrins are an exception though many mites are resistant) which are classed as a type of arachnid, related to spiders, ticks etc. In fact, insecticides may make matters worse as they kill mite predators. Miticides or acaricides (as you noted) are specifically targeted to mite control.
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Post by sykosarah on Mar 15, 2014 23:00:57 GMT
Insecticides are targeted to insects and will therefore mostly have little to no effect upon mites (pyrethrins are an exception though many mites are resistant) which are classed as a type of arachnid, related to spiders, ticks etc. In fact, insecticides may make matters worse as they kill mite predators. Miticides or acaricides (as you noted) are specifically targeted to mite control. All it is that I don't understand is why mites and other arachnids aren't poisoned by the same chemicals, that is all. I wonder what makes them immune to the poisons that kills insects, that's it. Yeah, trust me, I know what the results of trying to use insecticides tends to be. Mites killed the first tree I ever grew. Nastly little red monstrosities. My grandmother tried to spray them, but it didn't do anything, so she ended up trashing it. I had grown that tree since I was five, it was over a decade old when the mite infestation killed it. And I wasn't around to do anything about it. anyways, I hate mites for life, but this is getting off topic, onto other pests!
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Post by sykosarah on Mar 15, 2014 23:53:25 GMT
Peter D'Amato recommends using Orthene to treat mealybugs, scale, thrips, and aphids in his book "The Savage Garden", so I thought that since many of the solutions to one of these can get rid of all of them, I'd list them all out at once (seeing as that pesticide not only gets rid of these pests but prevents infections from being reestablished for months, it does seem like an ideal pesticide for people who have no issue with using "chemical warfare").
First up aphids, a pain in the butt of any plant enthusiast. Their small size prevents most CPs from being able to eat them, making them one of the most common potentially deadly pests (should the infection get bad enough, which it can pretty fast). While they infect a wide range of CPs, Venus Flytraps, trumpet pitchers, and sundews are some favorite targets in outdoor bog gardens or on indoor plants should you be unlucky. Aphids are so small that, unless you have one of the non green varieties attacking, you probably won't be able to see the pest very easily. But you will sure notice the deformities they cause on new growth (trust me, in bad infections there is no way you won't notice, those are some seriously messed up leaves). Ants like to farm them for honeydew, so if a bunch of ants seem to be hanging around your plants all the time, it could be a warning sign of an aphid infection. Besides chemicals, introducing natural predators of aphids to your pots or bog garden can help control the pest, and is a method often employed when one has many plants.
Next up is scale, which prefers to attack pitcher plants more than anything else. They are basically like aphids wearing suits of armor, which makes them harder to kill. Worse still, they won't move if you try to mess with them and they leave their nasty shells behind when you do manage to kill them, making it harder to tell if you have eliminated the threat or not. Their shells are tan or brown, and when there are a lot of them, they look like a scaly mess on you plants, hence the name. You can, with care, scrape them off to lessen the infection if you need some time to get the supplies to treat it, as well as to clean up your plant after they are already dead. Ants like to farm these guys too.
Onto thrips. These like pitcher plants also, though thankfully they aren't normally lethal, just gross and annoying. Not to mitigate the fact that they can be a problem though. They are thin, black, and small insects that move slowly. They make leaves look like they have silvery scratches and leave behind their peppery droppings (not an attractive look). The good news is that overall they are easier to get rid of than a lot of other pests, getting rid of them just takes a spray of a good insecticide and all is well. And if you really don't want to use chemicals, they aren't normally deadly so killing the bugs you see at your own pace should be ok; you have plenty of time to explore some alternatives.
Last but not the least annoying, mealybugs. These guys suck to get rid of if the infection has been given time to progress, and I am sorry to say that repeated use of insecticides is often needed to get rid of them for good. They look like little fuzzy puff balls, but their attack of pitcher plant rhizomes and leaves is anything but cute. Seeing fuzzy tufts amongst the growth points and older leaves is a sign of infection. Sooty mold, which likes too feed off of the honeydew they produce, is also a warning sign (good thing sooty mold is harmless in itself, if unattractive) of both mealybug and scale.
Any favorite techniques or experiences with these pests are appreciated to add to this thread, which was made in the hopes of helping all CP growers better protect their plants.
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Post by tanukimo on Mar 16, 2014 0:49:53 GMT
I would like to add that aphids are easily eaten by Drosera. I feed them to my Drosera and they are overwhelmed by a few tentacles. They like to attack the bases of petioles in Drosera so you might need to look closely at the plants to spot them. In general they are not that difficult to spot, though. I have only seen them on Drosera, personally. If the plant is small or the aphids are easy to see, then you might be able to get rid of all of them by just feeding all of them to a plant. This worked on a Drosera capensis I had that was infested with aphids before.
I would not recommend using natural predators to deal with them, unless you don't have many plants or the infestation is local, because often the ladybugs or other natural predators will end up being caught by the plants themselves. If you really want to try, I would recommend temporarily incapacitating your plants (maybe cover the entrance of pitcher plants or putting bags over traps so that the natural predators don't get eaten before they deal with the pests.
I would also like to add a pest: caterpillars. I have only experienced them once, on a Sarracenia x Dana's Delight. They lived in the gap where the peristome curves to meet the base of the pitcher, and were responsible for eating holes in the lids of the pitchers, as well as causing peristomes to look deformed. They also spun a silk-like web things which may be a sign that they are present.
They can be difficult to get rid of, because if threatened they can go into pitchers and are able to grip the sides pretty firmly, so I'm wouldn't try to force them to fall into the pitchers. I found a good way to deal with them other than scaring them out of the peristome and capturing them quickly is to stick a long, thin object into the pitcher when they are inside, whereupon they will wrap themselves around it. After this, you can take them out and do what you want with it.
Here are a few pictures of one and the damage it did. Here you can see the damage it did to the left side of the peristome where they were living (I had three). You can see on the left side where the lid has been partially eaten and is brown due to the caterpillars. And here you can see one of the culprits that I fed to my Drosera venusta. If you choose to feed them to your plants, be aware that they are pretty strong. Two of them escaped from the traps I put them on, so you should keep an eye on them to make sure they don't get away.
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Post by sykosarah on Mar 16, 2014 1:06:54 GMT
I think the funniest but so true pest mentioned in "The Savage Garden" is little children. Kids are such plant killers (it was weird that even as a little kid I had a green thumb, most kids forget to water plants, want to touch them all the time, get impatient with them, overwater them, etc.).
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Post by sflynn on Mar 18, 2014 3:34:24 GMT
More about caterpillar's, if you have Pings they are your worst enemies. I have had my whole southeastern US Ping collection defoliaged in a night and some plants where eaten to the roots. A good trick that works for me is to submerse the whole pot in a bucket of water. The caterpillars float to the top or drown. This works for all plants that can stand being submersed for the night.
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Post by tanukimo on Mar 18, 2014 5:55:10 GMT
Man that must be tough. And it's not like the pings can catch them so they can't do anything about them.
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Post by sykosarah on Mar 18, 2014 8:44:42 GMT
I grow my plants indoors and I don't have that many, so caterpillars aren't an issue for me.
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Post by tanukimo on Mar 18, 2014 9:45:03 GMT
It was the same for me. The plant came with caterpillars but it took me a while to notice.
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Post by sflynn on Mar 18, 2014 14:56:01 GMT
It was pretty bad, lost a very important plant to conservation, i tried feeding that caterpillar to pitcher plants, sundews, and venus flytraps. It ate every plant it touched!!!Finally just had to kill it.
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Post by sykosarah on Mar 18, 2014 17:03:05 GMT
It was pretty bad, lost a very important plant to conservation, i tried feeding that caterpillar to pitcher plants, sundews, and venus flytraps. It ate every plant it touched!!!Finally just had to kill it. Why didn't you just kill it before feeding it to a pitcher plant? They don't need wiggly live food.
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Post by sflynn on Mar 18, 2014 19:54:11 GMT
Because i did not know what a cutworm looked like at the time. Thought it was your regular caterpillar that only ate a few types of plants, not the kind that eats whatever is green inducing plastic!
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