Caapi pests

[occidentalis]

My garden is a desolate sandy plain punctuated by a few pedros and a solitary lemon tree, as I live very close to the coast and it's hard to grow a lot of things. Because of this my caapi plants live at my mum's house where they are able to enjoy the relative humidity of her courtyard, so I only get to check on them when I go up there.

I went up to visit mum, the plants, and the dogs today and found that one of the plants looked sick and had some insect pests underneath. On closer inspection they appeared to be aphid-related. I brushed the leaves off with my hand which appeared to get rid of a lot of them and then I sprayed with weak garlic/soap spray. Should I do anything else?

I took pics and put one in the gallery but I can't post them - says it won't allow parentheses within html tags.

[Happy Cadaver]

Sounds like aphids or spider mites .U can remove a lot of the really infested leaves and then spray with pyrethrum a couple of times, it should cut down the numbers.

[Rev]

In a normal garden envronment i usually find aphis to be an ephemeral problem

there may be and infestation one day and they are gone soon after - hoverflies and ladybirds make short work of them

however a soapy spray of just a clean jet of water to blast them off cuts down the numbers in the short term

if the plans was weak or small i would consider poisons otherwise its usually best to wait n watch

also creach may i recommend contacting your local mowing contractor if u have shit sandy soil

they have loads of fresh clippings that can be invauable in improving coastal wastelands cheaply and effectively.

[planthelper]

rev gave good advice, but may i add that amphid's seem to prefer to attack weaker and stressed plants?

so improofe your soil as said previously, but as a quick fix, water and fert the poor thing.

or does it get even too much sun/exposure?

if your plant gets lots of sun and you are not able to keep up with watering (you got sandy soil), it often pays off to move/replant the plant in a more shadier location.

[occidentalis]

Rev:

In a normal garden envronment i usually find aphis to be an ephemeral problem

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Yeah, but the plant is not a big one and they were on nearly every leaf.  The youngest leaves were looking pretty sad.

 

quote:

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also creach may i recommend contacting your local mowing contractor if u have shit sandy soil

they have loads of fresh clippings that can be invauable in improving coastal wastelands cheaply and effectively.

We have been getting some grass clippings delivered but the main problem is lack of shade and wind protection. Our backyard is really just an open sandpit with a couple of sheds, a small vege patch, and the abovementioned lemontree + cacti.

@ph, the plant is in a pot in good soil. My mum is pretty good at watering my plants as long as I'm nice to her , and I gave it some ferts when I went up there. Over the summer it was under a plastic 'colourbond' roof which it liked but now that the intensity of the sunlight has chilled out a bit it gets direct sun for a few hours a day.

If I do need to use poison, what would you recommend? I'm pretty against the idea but plant survival is more important than wishy washy ethics .

[Rev]

i would go for either a short acting contact poison like pyrethrins (natural and or synthetic)

or if the problems is persistent or the pest load insurmountable i might use a systemic fertiliser/insecticide like they use on roses

the later may be appropriate cos aphis are a big problem on roses

a thing i found very handy over winter in perth for my subtropicals was a telstra man hole cage covered in clear plastic

a mini greenhouse courtesy of your favourite telecommunications provider

the best things about it was the wind shelter plus keeping off the cold rain from the subtropicals

- it gets colder over here than in perth but its a dry cold here and both the wet cold and the prolonged low night time temps through to late spring are what do in the subtropicals like argyreia, kratom and capi in perth

[smogs]

grr i tryed to post this a few times but got errors

dig them up and check for c_url grubs... i was having a pest problem and turned out they were stressed due to these buggers!

if you find them dispose of (i feed to my lizards)

change the soil and wash pot with a dilute bleach solution... wash off well

should fix your problem

[ 30. April 2005, 04:42: Message edited by: smogs ]

[smogs]

i figured out the problem

if you have "curl" followed by a space and any otehr character it dies

give it a go

[ 30. April 2005, 04:51: Message edited by: smogs ]

[Benzito]

Don't tell me what to post!

You stinking Curlgrub!