Adelae needs help!

[shawnintland]

I've been wondering about one of my D. adelae that was in the back of the shelf...it's been looking more and more anemic this past week;


Today, upon closer inspection, I discovered My 'bug-eater' has been snookered by a bug attack!


So, anybody got any ideas (besides quarantining it!)? Not sure how it would react to a spray and most of the 'problems' are on the undersides of the leaves. If anyone has dealt with this before I'd love some advice!

Thanks!

Others nearby seem just fine;

[strath76]

Hi Shawn,

That is scale that you have there. Whilst being a pest if they are not in large numbers they shouldn't cause too many problems. One thing that can result from them is sooty mould. This feeds of the pests excrement (called Honey Dew). The usual treatment for this on other plants is to spray them with white oil. This is an oil based product that coats their outer shell and blocks the transfer of air leading ot the bugs death. If there aren't many you can just scratch them off with your nail.

One thing that you could try is submersing the plant in water, although I don't know how long you would need to leave it and this may be detrimental to the plant if you have to leave it under for long periods. Hope this helps.

[arvin555]

shawn,

Sorry to see that your Adelae has pests!

I am going to suggest to you to try out the Dishwashing soap method, mainly because it looks like it would be easy for you to apply on those broadleaves, plus maybe you can try it out on just one leaf first.

https://forum.petpitcher.net/showthread.php?t=579

I have promised to update it often and I had.

Anyways what I do is put a drop of dishwashing soap (liquid dishwashing soap) in a container, put a bit of water and then make it bubble, then use Q tips to get those soap suds and soapy water and apply. You should be able to notice them dead after maybe 2 hours, so if they don't drop off or drop off when slightly scraped, then maybe it is not working.

Mind you that I have used this on Aphids on my D. Spatulata flowerstalks with great results, and on a very badly infected chilli plant.

I also know that soap suds (bubbles) are affective in killing ****roaches, just for fun I usually make bubbles and throw a lot of bubbles on the ****roach to cover it's head at least, the roach would die far too quickly than if you try to drown them in just water. That is why the soap sud concept is plausible if not possibly true for me. Whatever insect that is, they will hopefully die of suffocation.

Good luck!

TTFN
Arvin
ps. soap idea doesn't seem to work on web molds though

[Cindy]

Shawn,

I would go to the extreme of throwing the plant away because the infestation looks bad. Ants will be happliy be spreading the scale insects from one plant to another. Soon you'll find that the others are also infested.

Sundews don't usually react favourable to any form of pesticide so you may still lose it with the application.

Either way, take lots of root cuttings and soon you have enough babies to tide you over the loss of this large plant.

Do give it more light...it looks too green and floppy.

[rsivertsen]

D. adelae grows much better in shallow wet conditions for me, even submerged in a few inches of water. Scale and mealybug are very difficult to eradicate, I suspect that some may be lurking in the root area and in the hard to get tight spots between the petiole and the stem as well. I hope you get them under control, and they haven't yet spread to your other CPs. I once had a Ceph that had a reoccurring infestation, and finally I gave it some powerful insecticide, which killed the plant as well. - Rich

[Cindy]

Shawn,

Here is a pic of my plant grown at the balcony which is windy, hot and bright. With your ambient humidity in Thailand, you can do the same.



The tentacles colour up in good light.

[shawnintland]

Thank you all!

To be honest, I think that even though none of us wants to admit it...Cindy is right! I'll trim most of the leaves off and dispose of them as I think the infestation is pretty heavy. I might try a few different 'treatments' on the cut leaves and if any seem to work, perhaps I can try the water method and see if they are strong enough to reproduce. There's just too much scale to try to scrape them off each leaf. Then, if after inspection the roots look "clean" I'll try to propagate from them as well.

My other two pots look okay, but not as nice as Cindy's! Due to monsoon here I have a hard time getting them enough sun but think I'll risk moving at least one of them off the porch anyway.

Thank you everyone, once again!

[arvin555]

Different plant altogether but I did post somewhere that I dipped a Ventricosa in water, fully submerged for a few hours to get rid of mealybugs in the root system, so far it has been maybe a month or so, and the plant is thriving.

Good point though that you might want to start over again, but with a twist. Maybe dip the root in water for a few hours, and the leaves you trimmed dipped in water too to get rid of the pests then, maybe try leaf propation, don't know if they are known for that though.

Good luck!
TTFN
Arvin

[shawnintland]

I spent a few hours last night with a high powered magnifying glass, trimming the leaves off and 'cleaning' them of the scale with a toothpick. Made three separate boxes of leaves in water; 1) just scraped off 2) scraped and dabbed with alcohol and 3) unscraped. All were washed under running water after scraping...we will see the results next month. It's pretty hard to scrape them without damaging the leaf tissue but it was all going into the garbage otherwise anyway! Will deal with the roots later today.

[Tarence]

Shawn, how are your d.adelae doing now ?