got siiick of mites and aphids...

16 years ago

...so I plopped the brugs in the sink, one at a time, picked off a few sad looking leaves, and then proceeded to soap up

every

single

leaf.

let it sit for a while and watched voyager on spike, then rinsed them off.

and repotted a few.

did the same thing for a couple of my passionflowers too.

I've never SEEN such repellent creatures. I've loved bugs since I was a little kid but jesus! all these things DO is eat, reproduce and destroy. and they do it prodigiously! and they're so JUICY... for a while now I've had to go in and squish them all manually, but I just couldn't keep up anymore!

but hopefully this'll at least SLOOOW THEMM DOOWN.

I've actually got two different "sets" of brugs: I've got the big ones (the infested ones) out here in a south window. the little ones, much more numerous, are clustered on a table in a west facing window across the house and are completely clean and untouched by any sort of pest. hopefully there won't be any cross infestation!

I'm betting you guys have resorted to this kind of obsessive extermination before :D what are the most extreme measures you've ever taken?

Ria

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Comments (15)

fool4flowers
16 years ago
Raid in the blue can, lol.
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pagrdnr
16 years ago
I hope soaping them down works for you. My oil soap/alcohol/water spray had to be applied several times to take care of whitefly. Then, I found spidermites a few weeks ago. I sprayed with this mixture again and rinsed it in the shower, then sprayed raid in the green can, but I hear blue is better, I bought green because it said it was specifically for garden use. I really hope the mites don't get bad, the whiteflies were bad enough but I know mites are worse.
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Interesting. Aphids and mites seem to have a very wide range of plants they will infest, although there seem to be some they like better than others. I will see aphids on young apple growth and leaves sometimes, they seem to like plums, and they like to infest my pie cherries and the ants then start farming them. I also have a pest I forget the name of since I saw it identified in a post here, but it looks like a very small slug or blob of caterpillar poo. It strips the chlorophyll off the leaves on my cherries and plums in late summer. Usually it doesn't seem like enough to really worry about, so I don't. Other times I spray. Your greenhouse creates a special environment which probably encourages some insect pests to be more of a problem than others. I often see fruit trees or garden plants which will seem resistant to a pest, then suddenly the plant gets a little dry or puts on a growth spurt or something, and whack, something really attacks it. A nice example is leaf cutter bees and potatoes. Normally, the bees (not a pest except when they aren't out in the fields doing their pollination jobs) don't hardly touch the potatoes, but if I let them get a bit dry and the leaves wilt during mid day, the bees will start on them and from then on, even if well watered, they really go after the leaves until the plants are pretty well stripped. All I have ever been able to conclude is that a change in environmental conditions suddenly makes the plant susceptible/attractive where they normally aren't. In a green house environment(or at least indoors), leaves often seem to be less rugged because they are protected from the strongest rays of the sun and from really strong winds. This would tend to make them easier for some pests to go after, and once present, the pests often don't face the predators and climate extremes that may control their numbers. This year we have had hoards of grasshoppers the last few weeks. I have a bunch of very small apple and apricot trees which are planted in the corner of an alfalfa field. The alfalfa really choked the trees and got ahead of them this summer and I didn't have time to clean things out, plus water was pretty irregular during the summer so everything suffered from drought. Then came the grasshoppers who have pretty much left me with alfalfa stems and virtually stripped the small trees of their leaves. Just a short distance away, I have more trees that get a lot more care and don't have any competition, and the grasshoppers just don't touch them.
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karyn1
16 years ago
Join the aphid club. I've never had them like this before. I wash them and hand pick off insects EVERY SINGLE PLANT daily! Think I need a life? lol
Karyn
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njwg
16 years ago
Anyone have pictures? I would like to see these bugs. I've had my bad luck with some brug cuttings not making it, but don't think I have had a bug issue. So, would I be able to easily see these white flies, aphids etc?

NOma
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pagrdnr
16 years ago
Noma,
Sorry no pictures but you will be able to see whiteflies definately if you have them. Just look on the underside of the leaves and you will see white bugs the size of fruitflies and yes they can fly. Let me tell you how dumb I was.... My first brug had no pests bothering it. I went back to the nursery a few weeks later to buy another, this was before I read on GW alot. This second brug was COVERED in whiteflies, but I bought it thinking they were only there because the brugs were in a GH and I figured the flies would go away once the brug was outside getting rained on, etc... Yeah right, I battled those whiteflies which spread to my other brug all summer and into the winter.
Now for the aphids... also look on the bottom of the leaves and look closer...they are little whitish transparentish things abothe the size of a period. At least I think these are aphids or maybe something else, all I know is these are easily taken care of with a soap/alcohol spray.
If you have mites they are very hard to see, in fact I don't think I've ever actually seen a mite, just look closely at the underside of the leaves for fine webbing...this means you have a spidermite problem.
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njwg
16 years ago
pagrdnr and all,
thanks for the posts and info. I will have a closer look tomorrow and will post back if I find anything.

Noma
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technodweeb
16 years ago
LOL riala - yep. I've resorted to putting them in the shower. Make a mess easier in there. Now theyr'e too big.

But when I've had smaller plants - used to do that all the time. My brugs last Jan inside never had a bug problem. Only after I put them outside were they assaulted.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. . . .
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karyn1
16 years ago
Here's some aphid pics. White flies are easy to see. All you have to do is shake the plant and a cloud of tiny flies will appear. They are a bi*ch to get rid of. I haven't had to deal with them in years, thank God!
Karyn

Here is a link that might be useful: aphid pics
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oxmyx
16 years ago
noma, the other problem not meantioned, is broad mites, you cant see them, but they devistate.
the are so small they are known to travel on the legs of white flies!
Ria, Be careful you don't have Broad Mites. I think you are holistic, use natural solutions, which is commendable, however, these wont work on Broad mites. I did what you did, more or less, twice striping all leaves; some eggs will still be left and the nightmare starts all over. Finally I used Forbid, specifically designed for mites; This seemed to do the trick.
You might need to find out if this is your problem, since you did get some cuttongs from me, before I knew I had mites.
Use macro mode on your camera and zoom way in. Take a look, and if necessary take consecutive images. Your eyes are sharp, you will probably see them.
good luck, I hope you get them.
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karyn1
16 years ago
I've never heard of Broad Mites. They are ugly little critters. It says that they are heat sensitive and can be killed by submerging the plants in warm water. I don't think that's feasible to do with a large number of infested plants but if you only have a few it might be something to think about.
Karyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Broad Mite control
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sibhskylvr
16 years ago
Ria

Check out this product! I've used it succesfully & am very happy with it! :) A little costly - but well worth it!

Mike

Here is a link that might be useful: Bayer's Tree & Shrub 12 Month
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pagrdnr
16 years ago
Sibhskylvr, I saw that product at walmart. Does it work well against mites/ whiteflies/ aphids, all of them. If so I may have to but a bottle for this summer. Thanks! I just googled the products like Avid and Forbid that I heard some people mention but those are too expensive for my taste, lol.
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pearlgirl
16 years ago
Prior to year '06, I kept my cuttings all in the garage in
water and potted them up just before time to put them out.
It worked for me without any real problem..and... I DIDN'T
HAVE TO DEAL WITH these critters. I'll probably go back to
my old way. Gotta try the blue can stuff!
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magickiwi
16 years ago
You can always mix up equal parts of rubbing alcohol and water with a squirt of plain dish soap - cheaper than anything on the market and it works! You can save that money to buy more plants!!!
Cheers from Michigan zone 5
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karyn1
16 years ago
Magickiwi you can use equal parts of alcohol and water and it doesn't hurt your plants? I use rubbing alcohol and water often but dilute it much more then that. I was afraid to use a stronger concentration of alcohol but I might try it on my problem plants, the citrus trees.
Karyn
0

got siiick of mites and aphids...

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