Mealy Bug Solution

[Sassismom]

I emailed the Canadian Orchid Society about the mealy bugs. This is what they told me...isopropyl alcohol, baby oil, and dish soap/water as a spray, and sit the whole pot in a sink of soapy water to kill any in the pots. What do you think?

[kid a]

Sounds good to me. That will do it. Be careful with the alcohol though. I think someone had a not so great exerience when they sprayed the orchid instead of wiping it down. Also try the cinnamon recipe too! I works wonderfully well and smells good too! You'll ned a small bottle of cinnamon extract. I found a bottle at super walmart (do you walmarts there?) You can adjust the recipe as needed, it works well as both a spray and as a soaking. The cinnamon will dry thingsout a bit so I always flush the mix to rinse the excess off the roots. Here is the recipe:

Brookn's Dish Soap Recipe
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10 drops dishsoap
1.8 ml cinnamon extract (about 2 tsp.)
2 cups tepid water

adjust ingredients as needed.

This is great for cleaning leaves, bacteria and fungal infections, bug teterrant, and now bug and slug killer !

[mayres]

It sounds like one of those pesticide-free "natural" remedies that you wish would work, but are not always what they are cracked up to be. I hope that this one is for your sake - it would be worth a try. It may kill all the lives ones - the next trick would be killing the new ones that hatch. You would probably want to stick with the program on a weekly basis for a month or so to make certain there were no new generations rising up. Good luck!

[kid a]

You are right mike I forgot to mention that. I'm not sure what the life cycle is on mealy bugs. You may be able to google that, but you will need to do a follow up treatment a few times unless you can find a product that will kill eggs. Jenny swears by this in her post titled The Best Stuff Ever. But keep in mind that what works for one may not always work for another. Generally I have found this to work extremly well. The initial application and soaking knocked out the live pests I had on my plants and fungal issues as well as dried up some rot areas on a poor phal I bought at discount from Lowe's. After that the follow up treatments kept them from overtaking the plant after more possibly hatched. I did two follow up treatments on my phals. But it is up to you definitely what you decide to use. I think whatever works best for you go for it as long as it doesn't hurt the plant and gets rid of those mealies that is what matters I like to us natural things when I can just because I have two tree frogs and a three year old. It scares me having chemicals and stuff around he gets into things quickly and stealthily now. can't leave him alone with the orchids it makes me nervous.

[Brooke]

It will kill the live ones but instead of checking the plant weekly, check it daily. The eggs will be in every nook and cranny of your plant and they hatch out at various times.

When using the alcohol, make sure you aren't in a cool draft area (think air conditioning vent). Alcohol will cool the leaf surface and can cause some cellular damage. It won't kill the plant but the damage is UGLY. Ask me how I learned that lesson :>)

IMHO mealies are the king of nasties to eliminate.

Brooke

[Sassismom]

I'm beginning to discover that they are indeed the king of the nasties.

Now if I use the cinnamon recipe, do I soak in that solution as well and if so for how long?
This is going to be a major undertaking as I have a ver small space in which to work and will only be able to do so many plants at a time. I may have to soak in kitchen sink, then move to the shower to drain and then on to the next batch. Do you recommend doing all my orchids or just the ones I can see them on?

Oh he also suggested using 2 sided tape on the stalks to trap any that may try to make their way out of the soil.