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Cacti & Succulents Ask The Yard Doctor Garden Clinic

What’s killing me?!? Desperate to save my succulents. Help!

5 years ago

last modified: 5 years ago

I’m a moderately experienced, self-taught grower/collector. The past couple of weeks my succulents have been plagued with mealy bugs, spider mites, aphids, scale,you name it. Now I am finding this what seems to be rapidly spreading and definitely severly damaging BROWN SCALES on my succulents. I suspect it’s something contagious (infestation or fungal) becausoe Iit appears to spread to neighboring plants.

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Comments (6)

Tracy Hackbarth
5 years ago
It looks like it could be chemical burn.
lisasfbay9b
5 years ago
Could be chemical, by whatever you used for the pests you had, from what I see the damage occurred when the leaves were tiny. Could stil be latent damage from the pests as well. You could still have pests that are really tiny, and damaging the leaves when they are tiny, so that as the leaf grows you get the marks and restrictions that seem to appear then, but have actually been there when smaller. Get some serious magnifying glasses, I got some X10 ones from ebay. You could also just use a spray of rubbing alcohol and 1/3 water., making sure it gets on the smallest center leafs and under them.

I'm curious to know what you used to treat the pests...anything with oil or soapbase can do damage.
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Nora B
Original Author
5 years ago
Thank you for your comments! Since posting this I have discovered the source of the damage. lisaSFbay9b- i was using a diluted 70% rubbing alcohol at the time i first started to notice the damage- from the online research i did I was convinced it was either chemical burn or edema from overwatering. This may indeed have been the case for a few of them; after i completely stopped watering or spraying a few did indeed start to improve (on their new growth). But after scouring and scouring the interwebs I got a tip that turned out to be true: THRIPS!!!!! These nasty, DEVASTATING invaders, previously feared primarily by farmers are becoming a more and more common problem amongst home gardeners.

Because it took me so long to diagnose the problem literally every plant on my property, inside and out, is infested. I am slowly trying to eradicate the little devils but have considered burning my house down and starting over more than i would like to admit. I have a little video of one, not sure if i can post, I’ll try to steal a good still from it if I can’t.

If you or someone you love might be suffering a thrips invasions quarantine everything and contact your local nursery for spray and root drench options!
lisasfbay9b
5 years ago
Wow, thanks for the update. Have you looked into Azamax for thrips? I have used it both as a foliar and a soil drench. For me the attraction is that it.s "organic", but at the least, it is "least toxic", and that it does not harm farina or leafs of succulents, i.e no oil no soap. it does take about 30days to kick in through soil drench, so I use alcohol along with it.

I think the good news for you is that thrips are not generally attracted to succulents, likely you just had such an infestation they got into them. I have had thrips on a couple trees/shrubs, but never found them in my succs. Azamax is refined Neem,just FYI so don't be fooled into buying the cheaper, plain neem. It is both oil and comparatively ineffective, making the Azamax more economical in the end. Good luck.

@melonmoonsucculents
niksouthafrica
5 years ago
I don't think you have thrips. If you have had an aphid problem, the leaves will exhibit scarring like that as they grow out. Echies are quite susceptible to pests but if it has been that bad, I suspect that you are underwatering your plants. This makes them more vulnerable to pests
Nora B
Original Author
5 years ago
Thank you for the tips LisaSFBay, I’ve been looking for a good root drench. From my exhaustive research you are right- historically thrips are not big on succs- however, what was previously more of a farm owners problem, western flower thrips are becoming an increasing problem for greenhouse owners and home growers.

Niksouthafrica- i so so wish you were right, but i can say with 100% certainty i have thrips- everywhere! It’s pretty easy to confirm since they can’t really hold on- aside from what i now recognize as the tell-tale damage if you just do a spider mite-type test and give your plant a good shake over a piece of paper you will see them scurrying about. Attached is a still from a video i took of a juvenile thrips panicking after i disturbed it’s resting place. If you’re still not convinced DM me and I can email you the actual video(s).
I have been under watering post-infestation but historically i have a tendency to over water.

Thank you both for your thoughts!
The play arrow in the photo is basically pointing to the translucent/cream colored thrips.

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