Ficus sticky leaves
- Thread starter Steve C
- Start date
Hyn Patty
Shohin
I agree with what Leo said and I've used the bug bombs on plants before to some effect. I'll note though that the bathing I suggested has little to do with the soap used - it's added to break water tension more than anything else. It is the ten percent bleach solution that matters. This is a standard phytosanitary procedure for sterilizing plant material for tissue culture and other uses that require the plants to be absolutely free of bacteria, fungal spores, mites, etc. (I do tissue culture) Therefor you do not have to keep repeating the bathing many times. It is less stressful to the plant material than using alcohol. Yet even bleach and water can't get into /every/ crevasse and using the soap doesn't guarantee that you can't still have air bubbles trapped here or there. So the followup bath (or other treatment) is a good precaution.
If you have more than just the one tree to treat, I'd go with trying spraying or a bug bomb first. I have had up to 4,000 indoor plants in my personal collection inside (recently, not counting things outside or trays of seedlings as I also do hybridizing) and it is simply not practical to treat everything with hand washing. It is however very effective if you catch things early while you only have a few plants infected.
Insecticidal soap is only effective against a few kinds of mites and there are /thousands/ of varieties. If you don't find that to be helpful, I'd suggest using Forbid 4 alternated with AVID. Both however are very toxic. Sulphur sprays are also quite useful against most kinds of mites but DO NOT USE any sulphur based product if you also use oil based products within several weeks of one another. Sulphur + oil creates phytotoxic reactions in plants and can kill them. Your local Agricultural Extension office can also assist if you have questions or wish to get a pest positively ID'd (such as species of mite).
If you are trying anything new for the first time, always test it first on only a few leaves, or a plant you don't care much about, to be sure that particular species doesn't react badly to the course of treatment you wish to use.
If you have more than just the one tree to treat, I'd go with trying spraying or a bug bomb first. I have had up to 4,000 indoor plants in my personal collection inside (recently, not counting things outside or trays of seedlings as I also do hybridizing) and it is simply not practical to treat everything with hand washing. It is however very effective if you catch things early while you only have a few plants infected.
Insecticidal soap is only effective against a few kinds of mites and there are /thousands/ of varieties. If you don't find that to be helpful, I'd suggest using Forbid 4 alternated with AVID. Both however are very toxic. Sulphur sprays are also quite useful against most kinds of mites but DO NOT USE any sulphur based product if you also use oil based products within several weeks of one another. Sulphur + oil creates phytotoxic reactions in plants and can kill them. Your local Agricultural Extension office can also assist if you have questions or wish to get a pest positively ID'd (such as species of mite).
If you are trying anything new for the first time, always test it first on only a few leaves, or a plant you don't care much about, to be sure that particular species doesn't react badly to the course of treatment you wish to use.
Same here.
Steve C
Omono
There's three of the ficus that I am going to have to treat so not a lot. While the bug bomb sounds like it would work, I don't think that's something I want to do here mainly because I have many aquariums as well as three cats so I'm always careful to not disperse chemicals in the air like that. Gonna try to get to treating them in the next day or two. Been unable to do much the past 2 days with my Sister having to go to the hospital yesterday. Things should be back to more normal tomorrow though hopefully so I can start treating these.
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