Killing the pests or my plants? Mealys and Scale

[lbishop52]

Thanks Discus, I have used Neem oil on my veggies and it worked great for aphids, will try on the orchids. Neem Oil is ingestible and non toxic. Why wouldn't we start using it. Just use morning or evening and not during the daytime. Will burn the plants. Orthene scares me but it works. Oh my. LB

[Discus]

Ray Barkalow seems to rate Neem quite highly for orchids - see Pure Neem Oil and First Rays' Home Remedies for instance.

Let us know how it works for you

[Vanda lover]

I'm spraying trounce insecticidal soap with a little alcohol, garlic and hot pepper with good success. I find that checking them daily and removing any that I see also helps a lot. My Spath is a real scale magnet.

[lbishop52]

Hi Vanda Lover, I love Vancouver. Your mixture sounds interesting. Our local orchid classes gave a mixture of 1 cup alcohol,1 cup 401 household cleaner to a gallon of water for maintance of bugs but I still battle scale and have to use Orthene or Neem oil occaisionally and we have lots of fungus in Florida with all this rain. I am going to try the Bayer Tree and Scrub granules and see what I get. Happy growing.lbishop52

[Vanda lover]

Vancouver Island is quite a different place. We have really good humidity in the winter.
Good luck with the bugs! I guess there are a lot of choices but you have to stick with it. I think I'll put my spath in s/h and see if it helps that one. There are so many plants in the pot that it is difficult to control them.

[lbishop52]

I have friends that relocated from Vashon Island to Florida. They had some orchids that bit the dust. Sounds like you have the handle on it. Loved Buchardt Gardens and the Empress Hotel (high tea) Been there twice! Keep up the good work. Stay warm. lbishop52

[northernorchids]

Well it's been over a year since I started my battle to regain control of my orchids. I've used many of the tips I've read here, but mainly I've used the Bayer systemic when watering. I only use it occasionally now as a preventative. I have not found any scale or mealys. Many of my plants have or are blooming and none seem to have problems w/their flowers. 1 Phrag has a stalk w/5 flowers on it and another flower stalk just starting to emerg. A Paph that hasn't bloomed in years has a flower and 1 Oncidium had a flower stalk so tall and covered w/branches of flowers I had a hard time finding a place to put it.
Fall it coming so I plan to take my trays outside and scrub them down and clean up shelves and the area around them. Look over plants and see if there is anything I am missing, maybe do some repotting.
Hopefully this thread will help others who find themselves faced w/the same problem. One thing I do recommend it to get rid of infested plants that are easy to replace. Then you can concentrate on clearing up the others.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by northernorchids

... I've used many of the tips I've read here, but mainly I've used the Bayer systemic when watering. I only use it occasionally now as a preventative.

Generally speaking, preventive application of insecticides should be avoided. Repeated use of the same one is also a potential problem. The combination of the two can be the ideal way to help breed resistant strains.

The better thing to do is be observant, and treat affected plants immediately with an appropriate pesticide, repeating at whatever interval the label recommends (three applications at one-week intervals seems to be pretty standard, to encompass the entire pest life cycle).

If the ailment recurs, repeat the treatment using a pesticide with a different killing action.

One thing more about Merit (imidicloprid - Bayer's most common insecticide): repeated use has been linked to bad mite infestations. I speculate that it is so effective at killing insects - including those that attack mites but not plants - that it wipes out their natural enemies. I have used the stuff without any mite infestations, but the high humidity of a greenhouse environment doesn't favor them anyway.