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Hello, well after finding out i had a pest on my nepenthes in a trade felt i should take some action and ask the forum if anyone could identify the pest and how i can treat it.

the nepenthes was inside a propagation tank along with tons of cuttings that were rooting, and tons of germinating dews. this is one cutting that i believed shows what might have been on the plant i sent. to me i thought the leaves were discoloring because they were rooting cutting. the plants are under at least 85% humidity, with 2 24 or 26 compact florescent lights that hit them for about 10-15hrs a day, the leaves might also have some speks of dirt on them.

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I also noticed something new on one of my newly received nepenthes, this i dont think would have been the one that traveled along with the other plant because i received these after the trade.

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can any help? is the 2nd one scale? its only effecting one leaf shsould i clip it off before it spreads? the plant is being isolated. the first one i have no idea. Personally all i have delt with is squirrels, chipmunks, aphids and a little bit of scale that i was told might not even be scale.

thanks
dustin
 
I can't really tell much from the first picture. The old leaf is obviously dying but it could be simply the age and the cutting as you say or something is causing it. It is a bit odd that it is the entire one half that went first which could indicate something but not necessarily. Can you be more specific on what was supposedly found on the other plant? Any photos of that plant? Or take some photos of the underside of the leaf?

The second one with the sunken brown pits on the new leaf looks like damage from being too wet and cold on the tender young leaf for a prolonged period during shipping. It looks kinda like the very young leaf in the center has also been killed. I would leave it alone unless it is clear that the affected areas are growing in size.
 
um xantius is posting a pic...ill take a pic of the underside of the leaf for you of the first plant.

thanks, for your input. #2 i did put them in a bag for acclimation, but i took them out because they have been in them for about a week, so ill see how it goes.

i was told #1 looks like spider mites can anyone back it up?

going to get more pics

---------- Post added at 02:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:26 PM ----------

back of #1's leaf

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looks like the leaf died on how the stem split
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Sorry hard to tell much from the photo. Spidermites you can usually see with a magnifying glass. They also will make the underside of the leaf bronzy brown in color where they are centered. In really bad cases the whole underside of the leaf can get a brownish color. They also tend to be easiest to find on the older lower leaves if they are attacking a plant.
 
ill try to get a better pic tomorrow, i was taking them fast because the battery was dying....

can spider mites be treated with neem oil?, im guessing the leaf is done for and hopefully nothing effects the new growth tip, it might just be age, but i could use some neem oil to make sure. the white stuff on the leaf is most likely rooting hormone.
 
Here are the pests that were on the leaves of the Nep I received. They appear to be some kind of white grub type pest with small head and tail.

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nah... that's that tropical whitefly thing. Although some think it is a scale of some sort, I am going with the whitefly. Most insecticides should work on it but I wpuld probably use orthene since those little buggers get down into the nooks and crannies.
 
Holy God!! Those are a nightmare. I remember them a bit too well. I threw away 5 neps to prevent further spread. IMO...its not whitefly. I have had those insects for months and never ever did I spot a single adult whitefly. It is in my opinion a form of scale. The big ones in the first pic that are like greyish pink color are female. The white ones are male. THere are smaller ones which u cannot see which are crawlers that do a heck of a lot of damage in terms of spreading to neighboring plants. I think its called the cycad scale or something. If it is a very precious plant...I would do regular (every week) alcohol swab treatments. On top of that...to treat the roots...I would use a systemic insecticide and thoroughly drench its roots once u unpot it. Then...after 10 min or so of drenching...repot it into fresh media. Seperate the plant and watch it carefully and continue alcohol swabs. Hopefully they should go away. To be safe.... drench the pot and plant after 2-3 weeks again in systemic insecticide. That should get rid of it.

Although...I personally didnt want to risk more spread and threw away 5 neps which showed infection signs. I did manage to save a couple which were precious using basically just alcohol swabbing regularly.
 
Oh the humanity! Those white things are a Hawaiian scale - and they are a nightmare. Honestly, my advice is to burn the plant. Seriously.

Otherwise, do what vraev says, though I'd do it every seven days for 3 weeks.

Gah, it makes me shudder....
 
  • #10
dude the reaction in these last two posts have given me the heeby jeebies over these things...

I'm not envious of your position... :(

Good luck.
 
  • #11
OH, wow, somehow i completely overlooked them, are they really small? and if their not how come i dont see them on any of my other plants, that that plant was with? I recieved it as an extra from an ebay seller because the orginal plant he sent the grow tip broke
 
  • #12
Dustin, I would take a close look at all your plants. Particularly those that were closest to the affected plant before it was removed. If it was only for a brief period then perhaps they didn't spread. But it may also take some time for them to reappear if they did migrate..
You may not spot them so easily if there are only a few around and they may not be in such highly visible places initially.

As for the whitefly/scale question.. I can't find any deffinative answer. They were ID'd by Florida Ag as whitefly according to a commercial grower there. Apparently whitefly and scale are quite closely related so who knows.. Regardless, they are a nasty pest and will do alot of damage to the plant and they spread easily as well as getting into all parts of the plant. So you deffinately need to use multiple treatments and preferably some sort of systemic to be sure you erradicate them where you can't see them. Although I am with Caps on this one.. if it's nothing special and it's isolated then perhaps burning it might be simpler!

Tony
 
  • #13
i did a lookover all my plants that may have been in contact with that plant, and none of them seem to have anything, unless they are real small and im not seeing them.

should i send him a message about it? the purchase was nov. 9, 09

i sent a message to him ill post what he said...
 
  • #14
I have never had to deal with them so can't say from experience how easy they are to spot. From the photos though they look fairly visible once the population is large enough.

Up to you if you contact the seller. Might want to let him know he may have a pest problem that needs treating.
 
  • #15
all i have at the moment is neem oil, so ill try to get a treatment of it on all my plants today. i contacted the seller to let him know and see if he has delt with the pest before to see if they had any advice
 
  • #17
So white fly or the asian cycad scale

I justs finished treating all my nepenthes with neem oil...and the bad news is i may have found the pest on my n. caesar...my largest nepenthes in the collection though i never thought that it had any contact with the infected plant...so i made sure i treated that one really good
 
  • #18
superman does "good"

you do "well"

;)
 
  • #19
The only good thing about this pest is that it seems to ignore a lot of nepenthes - it only likes some of them. I've found that truncata hybrids are particularly tasty to them.
 
  • #20
The only good thing about this pest is that it seems to ignore a lot of nepenthes - it only likes some of them. I've found that truncata hybrids are particularly tasty to them.

Very good observation Max. yes!! I can attest to that. The cycad scale seemed to like N. mira, N. aristolochioides, N. talagensis, N. fusca sarawak, N. lowii, N. alata and N. ramispina. However, there was a campanulata potted in the same pot as the fusca for over 6 months and there was no scale on the camp. Similarly, there was a N. rajah potted along with the N. lowii, N. aristolochioides and N. mira. Yet..there was no spread. The pest seems to be a bit choosy. Of all though...it loved the fusca.

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---------- Post added at 11:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:01 PM ----------

BTW....neem doesn't help with this thing man. Alchol swabbing is a must to remove all the adults. Then...as I said...there are crawlers you cannot see. PLUS...those adult shells are full of eggs and some must have fallen in the soil...so there are already larve in there. Hence....multiple treatments are necessary.

i highly suggest as Max said..... if these aren't too precious plants....I would seriously....I mean...really very seriously consider burning them. Trust me...you do not want to take chances. Scale, spidermites and thrips are huuge nightmares and if untreated...they can devastate your collection.

Ask if you need any more advice. I still get jitters when I look at your image man. Believe me...this pest was a real nightmare. I hope I never have to go through it again and I hope you make the right choice to destroy the affected plants or isolate them and treat them very very well with the above guidelines.

BTW...I also used 99% isopropyl alcohol....not the crappy 70% rubbing alcohol. lol! This thing was strong enough to burn the leaves of a villosa. lol I was trying to use it as a prophylactic when I saw some white marks.......sheesh...bad mistake...within minutes...the tissue died and the affected portions turned brown.
 
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