My battle with the bug
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 11:40 pm
For a few years my small cacti collection (low hundreds) was root mealybug (RMB) free till I made the bad mistake of failing to quarantine a plant I bought from a well known grower which was plainly RMB infested. I should have sent it back or not been lazy. Due to lack of vigilance on my part over the last couple of years what was a small problem has now become a big one and I have decided drastic steps are needed. Part of those steps is to start this blog to initially humiliate myself but ultimately to encourage me to get off my backside and do something I can be proud of and rehabilitate myself.
I do not want to use noxious chemicals if I can avoid it which means that what I have decided to do is to repot nearly every plant in my collection. This obviously creates logistical issues. I began on Sunday by unpotting a few plants and giving them a good hosing down to remove any obvious RMB. Having done a few I decided to keep going. Even plants which appeared to be clean I decided to unpot just in case I missed something. At the end of the day I was left with a huge pile of unpotted plants (and no daylight!) so I placed them in some large trays in shallow water to keep the roots moist and there they remain in the garage.
Here is the first dilemma. Is it safe to leave plants in shallow water for a few days? Alternatively is it a good idea to let the roots dry out? I have come to the conclusion that the latter is a bad thing and that the former is equally unwise so I am planning a happy medium of replacing the water with a layer of moist compost for the time being. As you will appreciate Japan v Belgium and England v Colombia are not good for immediate repotting.
Without wishing to go too far off topic, I have already noticed that immersing roots in water has caused some species to send out new roots, particularly some parodias, echinocerei and matucana whereas others show no signs of this. Presumably some species have roots which react in different ways to others but which and why I can only guess at.
Anyway my main question, on which I should welcome some guidance, is what additional precautions should I take before repotting to ensure that no residual RMB remains which has not been jetwashed off already? However hard one tries there is always the chance of a RMB remaining hidden in a crevice somewhere. The small number I have repotted so far I have dunked in meths for a few minutes and then rinsed off which is time consuming and some may say pointless??
So there I stand at present. Any tips on what else I should do before repotting would be most welcome. Bear in mind I need to get it done quickish so I don't want to be hanging around waiting for the postman to bring me some expensive potion coming all the way from Peru.
I will try to remember to get the camera out and take a few pictures to make things a bit more interesting next time.
I do not want to use noxious chemicals if I can avoid it which means that what I have decided to do is to repot nearly every plant in my collection. This obviously creates logistical issues. I began on Sunday by unpotting a few plants and giving them a good hosing down to remove any obvious RMB. Having done a few I decided to keep going. Even plants which appeared to be clean I decided to unpot just in case I missed something. At the end of the day I was left with a huge pile of unpotted plants (and no daylight!) so I placed them in some large trays in shallow water to keep the roots moist and there they remain in the garage.
Here is the first dilemma. Is it safe to leave plants in shallow water for a few days? Alternatively is it a good idea to let the roots dry out? I have come to the conclusion that the latter is a bad thing and that the former is equally unwise so I am planning a happy medium of replacing the water with a layer of moist compost for the time being. As you will appreciate Japan v Belgium and England v Colombia are not good for immediate repotting.
Without wishing to go too far off topic, I have already noticed that immersing roots in water has caused some species to send out new roots, particularly some parodias, echinocerei and matucana whereas others show no signs of this. Presumably some species have roots which react in different ways to others but which and why I can only guess at.
Anyway my main question, on which I should welcome some guidance, is what additional precautions should I take before repotting to ensure that no residual RMB remains which has not been jetwashed off already? However hard one tries there is always the chance of a RMB remaining hidden in a crevice somewhere. The small number I have repotted so far I have dunked in meths for a few minutes and then rinsed off which is time consuming and some may say pointless??
So there I stand at present. Any tips on what else I should do before repotting would be most welcome. Bear in mind I need to get it done quickish so I don't want to be hanging around waiting for the postman to bring me some expensive potion coming all the way from Peru.
I will try to remember to get the camera out and take a few pictures to make things a bit more interesting next time.