Orchid in good health but with not desired guests.

[RosieC]

I leave spring tails, but before I knew what they were I got rid of them by changing the medium for fresh stuff and bleaching the pots.

[silken]

Malathion usually kills just about everything. But you may have to repeat if there were eggs. I've used it without any harmful effects to my plants.

[Adrianna]

ja;ja i have 14 recued dogs and 25 rescued cats and 16 semi wild fox in the garden!! but this small creatures around the orchid....there is no way!!;and they have to feed themselves of something...so they may suck the sap of the plant...and i don't really like that.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

From what I understand springtails feed on decaying organic matter, algae, and maybe even certain kinds of fungi.

[Adrianna]

Dear all , finally i spread malathion..and my surprise is that had burned the leafs and almost killed te orkid,so i repotted it urgently and clean as i could to try to save her... and the small pests some of them are still running... so malathion does kill the plant.

[Adrianna]

In one day the orchid has lost 4 leafs...all burned.

[silken]

Did you follow the instructions for mixing the Malathion? I have never seen any kind of burn or mark from using the Malathion we buy here. I mix it as per instruction. It has been sprayed judiciously on one phal that I know of for sure. Also spraying with anything and leaving in bright sun can cause burn.


To fight a losing battle with scale, one of my oncidiums got regular sprayings with it until all the eggs had hatched and everything was finally killed off.

Attached is a link about Malathion saying it is widely used, even as a spray over cities for mosquitoes, so it can't be very damaging to most foliage. As well, many other articles on the web indicate it is effective against springtails.
Malathion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Very sorry to hear about your plant.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

If I may, I'd like to suggest the use of 70% isopropyl alcohol instead.

Isopropyl alcohol kills soft bodied insects on contact, but will not harm your plant. The thing with isopropyl alcohol is that it should ideally never touch the plant's roots. It's also inexpensive and very easy to find.

There's also the option of changing out the media.

In my opinion, if they're truly sprintails, don't even waste time, money, and effort into eradicating them. From what I've seen, many of them are harmless to plants and humans, and they're practically everywhere in environments that are moist and have decaying matter.

Scales, mealies, aphids, fungus gnats, white flies (an aphid relative, not a true fly), and other insects that can harm your plants - fine, do your best to get rid of them. But if they really are springtails - just leave them be.

[Adrianna]

Thanks a lot, i will look at the link but i put it in two plants and they were very healthy and now they are dying...but well, yesterday i repotted both and cleaned them with a lot of water..and i hope they will live..today the one that had all the small guests had lost 2 more leafs so she had 9 and now has 3....and the other one had lost only two but one side of the plant has all the leafs dying and the other side it´s fine as usual...i don´t really know what happened..

Thanks a lot...

[Adrianna]

Well, lets be happy, i have three small/baby Phal Equestris var. apari and i hope that in a year will have a lot of small and wonderfull flowers...