Nice day today so I thought it a good day to clean the greenhouse top to bottom and wipe the glass, floor and staging with Jeyes fluid. A good load of muck was cleared out, as well as the usual spiders webs and general detritus, but under the wooden staging I was surprised to find what looked like they could mealie bug nests. See pics below.
The pictures may not be clear, but these nests were about 20 or so in number, and ranged from 1mm to 3mm across. What was interesting was that they were only present under the staging with plants on by the glass, and not under the staging that I use for potting or cooler staging near the door. I hope they are mealie nests, because if so they have now been utterly annihilated, which could mean an end to my recurrent mealie problems this winter.
Zoomed in view
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Mealie Nests?
mealie nests.jpg (55.76 KiB) Viewed 2695 times
Last edited by gerald on Thu Mar 05, 2015 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DaveW wrote:I often find them also under the bottom of the pots where you don't normally look.
I also found some under pots when I looked following an earlier post on the subject. It's not easy to check there because the tendency is to tilt the pot and scatter the top dressing of gravel all over the greenhouse.
Rod Smith
Growing a mixed collection of cacti & other succulents; mainly smaller species with a current emphasis on lithops & conophytum.
gerald wrote:Nice day today so I thought it a good day to clean the greenhouse top to bottom and wipe the glass, floor and staging with Jeyes fluid. A good load of muck was cleared out, as well as the usual spiders webs and general detritus, but under the wooden staging I was surprised to find what looked like they could mealie but nests. See pics below.
The pictures may not be clear, but these nests were about 20 or so in number, and ranged from 1mm to 3mm across. What was interesting was that they were only present under the staging with plants on by the glass, and not under the staging that I use for potting or cooler staging near the door. I hope they are mealie nests, because if so they have now been utterly annihilated, which could mean an end to my recurrent mealie problems this winter.
mealie nests 2.jpg
mealie nests.jpg
I very much hope you have achieved success, which has been impossible for me. I like you had an infestation of mealies last year. All my plants were dunked in a solution of Provado and all the staging cleaned top and bottom, and floors swept. Still they persist on plants after a further spraying of Provado to individual plants. I must say that I didn't use Jeyes for the cleaning but a disinfectant. If yours work then I will have to try.
Yes, good luck getting rid. I'm so pleased that I've not had mealy for years. I think I avoided them by utterly scrutinizing any new plant to my collection. I had years of trying to kill with malathion- which I suspect killed more of my Notocacti than the woolly bastards. Garden centres are a massive no no. Unless you like a juvenile E grusonii covered in glitter, dye and plastic flowers drilled into the apical meristem!
Try something different then as you may have a Provado resistant strain of mealy bugs. The constant use of the same insecticide can breed resistant strains. I would suggest everybody uses at least two different types of insecticide per year rather than relying on the same one repeatedly.
Try a contact insecticide occasionally along with systemic ones to try and kill off the resistant bugs the other leaves behind. Usually insecticides don't kill mealy bug eggs, so repeated applications for a few weeks are necessary throughout the season to kill the new generation emerging from them. However prophylactic or unnecessary use of insecticides can also breed resistance, so keep varying the chemicals you use.
"Because mealybugs have high reproductive capacities and multiple generations in a year, they have the potential to become resistant to pesticides very quickly. The use of stronger and stronger pesticides breeds more and more resistant mealybugs, until the stage is reached where efficient and practical chemical control of the pest is no longer possible. Fortunately mealybugs can be controlled using ‘soft’ methods including biological agents and low-toxicity pesticides, most of which are readily available to the horticultural industry and the home gardener."
I've learned mealy lesson hard way: if you let them spread 'too much', no matter how good insecticide you have, you won't kill them all. I didn't have problems past years because I've treated them as soon as I've spotted them. Last year real life got in a way, I've left them pretty much alone for at least 6 months... and I'm still trying to get rid of them. No matter how much spray and liquid insecticide I use, they are still here.
I have found magnifying lenses are important for hunting them. I thought I had cleaned a plant with the paint brush and rubbing alcohol when I looked with the naked eye but then I put on the illuminated magnifying headset I use for pollinating and was stunned by the amount of mealies I had missed.
