If you have ever wondered why your plant is covered in a white dandruff-like powder or why it is sticky, the answer is probably that one of the most common garden pests is inhabiting them.
What are the most common pests in the garden and orchard?
When insects start to invade your plants, you can remove them by hand or with chemicals that are generally sold in powder or liquid and come in a variety of brands.
Trips
The thrips usually cause a lot of damage to the flowers, since they pierce and scrape the petals.
When you inspect your plants, look for small, black, and elongated bugs and if you find them, combat them by spraying the plant with a pesticide that contains pyrethrin, malathion, or this effective multipurpose insecticide Calypso AL that also works for whiteflies and aphids.
Whitefly
When you shake the plant that is infected by whiteflies, they form a cloud of insects that can be annoying and very difficult to eliminate.
They thrive in warm, dry places, and usually deposit their eggs and larvae on the underside of the leaves, which can be seen as small, oval, white scales that excrete molasses and produce a black fungus. Spray your plant twice a week with a pesticide that contains pyrethrin or malathion.
Aphid
Aphid is one of the most common pests in the garden.
There are different colors of aphids: green, black, pink, and yellow. They can be winged or wingless, depending on their maturity. When they start to multiply, they can quickly damage your plant and attack new shoots to suck out the juice and feed.
While a mild aphid attack can be combated with a little warm water, you should ideally spray the plant once a week for three weeks with a pesticide containing malathion, pyrethrin, or permethrin.
Cotonet or cottony mealybug
Adult mealybugs appear squashed and covered in a fleecy white powder. They tend to attack new shoots and cause serious damage. Carefully remove the plant from the pot and look for insects that cluster around the roots.
If you can find them, remove the mealybugs by dipping the root mass in a solution containing malathion. Repeat the treatment two or three times with an interval of 10 days or apply the insecticide Volck Miscible.
Typulas
Although these insects are not only a serious problem, they can be very annoying and damage the roots of plants that grow in peat compost.
Typulas is very similar to mosquitoes and feeds on the putrefied matter. To combat them, apply pyrethrin and water the compost with a metaldehyde solution. Repeat the procedure twice with an interval of seven days.
Woodlouse
They appear to be warts that are brown, pale and transparent and are usually found on the stems and on the back of the leaves. The newborn mealybug is flat and small and feeds on the juices of the plant.
When the invasion is very large, the new shoots become deformed and the stems can be completely destroyed. Spray with malathion, dimethoate, Volck Miscible, or Calypso AL.
Slugs
The slugs and snails that attack indoor plants are different from those in the garden, since they are small and hide in the smallest hole or crack they find and leave at night.
They feed on large pieces of leaf, so you must use Ferramol to eliminate them.
Red spider
Mites are so tiny that they are usually invisible to the naked eye. In addition, they are located on the back of the leaves. However, when the plague is very widespread, you can see straw-colored creatures and some fabrics on the plant.
To prevent the appearance of red mites, you should spray the leaves, particularly the back, with an acaricidal insecticide.
