Phrag Eric Young w/ Mealies! Ugh.

[jrodpad]

Yup. I was watering my phrag eric young - and admiring the new bud at the end of the spike that you see in the picture below.... when it happened.

I saw that gross white powdery stuff inside the node covering (what are those things called anyway?) just below the new bud. I gently turned the node covering inside out and there was a small mealie party going on in there. I cleaned them out manually and began looking for other spots of infestation. As luck would have it, none of the other nodes where hiding mealies. The leaves looked clean too as did the surface roots. Then I saw the smallest white spec in the node covering of the new bud. Yup again. I did my best to bend back the node covering and remove the mealies that I could see. I didn't have any alcohol or insecticidal soap handy, so I put some dilute physan on the tip of a q-tip and swabbed the 2 infected nodes, trying my best to avoid the new bud.

Will the physan kill the mealies or should I go back with alcohol tonight? Am I sure to loose this bud or is there a chance that it still might flower? In clearing out the mealies in the node underneath the bud, I accidentally peeled the covering off so that the node is now exposed. It made it easier to kill the bugs, but have I doomed this spike?

Finally, is it possible that the infestation could be so localized? Or is this orchid likely crawling with mealies that are too small to see?

Any advice would be most welcome.

Thanks!

- J