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Pest & Disease Control
Over watering
I am going to start this off by saying this; one of the biggest pests to a plant is a new grower. The reason I say this is they tend to over water or over nut the water or both when feeding.
Let's start with the main reason most plants get sick or die. Over watering them, by doing this you deprive the roots of the plant the much needed and wanted oxygen they crave in the root zone. The first signs of over watering are droopy leaves; this will follow with a few new signs of some type of nutrient deficiency. At this point you should stop watering the plant stick a fork in the soil if indoors and move it forward and reverse to open up the dirt so air can get to the roots. If it is out doors us a pitch fork to do the same thing.
When you water use just enough to see a little start to come out the bottom of the pot, you don't want it pouring out as this is too much. At this point I would pick the pot to see how heavy it is, this is why it should feel right after watering. I would wait a few days after watering your plant and stick my finger in the soil to the second knuckle and see how much moister is in the soil. If it feels wet and some moister is on my finger when I pull it out it is still ok. I would keep checking every day after this point until my finger felt damp but no moister on my finger. This is when I would pick the pot back up and see what it weight is like because this is when it is time to water again.
The other way is to buy a moister meter from any local hardware store or hydroponic store around you.
If you are in hydroponics you should find a way to increase you oxygen levels or more air baths. I will talk more on this in a minute.
Under Watering
This is an easy way to test if the leaves look droopy just stick your finger in the soil if it is dry water it. Keep a close eye as to how often it does this, this may bee a sign you are not watching you plant as well as you should. Plus just picking up the pot will also tell you if it feels really light.
Root Rot
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Number one reason of root rot is lack of oxygen in the root zone. This can be due to over watering, to high of temps in the soil, to low temp in the soil. Both in soil or hydroponics you should try to keep the temps around 65 to 70 deg F. any swing in either direction will cause root rot to invade your plant.
Poor soil drainage is another problem that will big the pain on you.
Once you find out you have rot you need to find out what caused it, take care of the problem so it does not come back and hurt you later. Some people say to use H20 (hydrogen peroxide) when watering or adding it to the reservoir, but I find it is way too hard on the plant and will cause it to make the leaves droopy. I like to use PRO-Tek from Dyna-Gro.
Use 1 to 2 ML per gallon in all hydroponics systems and even soil growing.
As for dirt it is best to add it every watering until the root rot is gone and then from their use you own judgments. If you are organic nutrients and you keep getting root rot after you killed it off the first time, stop using organics. You should not be using organics indoors any way they take way too long to break down in the short cycle of bloom indoors. ( I will get into this in another thread)
Keeping products like Superthrive and Potassium Silicate will help the plant build up defenses to protect it from attacks. Also water chillers work wonders if you are running larger plant counts.
Damping Off
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Damping off is caused by a group of organisms that effect seedlings or clones. Stems of any afflicted seedlings or clones will blacken or shrivel at or near the base of the plants. Eventually your plant will fall over, there is no cure for damping off.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering
PH Problems
If your plant leaves start to twist and get covers in spots that are brown and yellowish with red in them it is a ph problem. It may not show all the spot colors at once but the twisted leave is a dead giveaway. Improper PH will lock out nutrients and the plant will not fix itself until the ph is back to normal.
The problem starts with the big fan leaves at the ends and then moves to smaller leaves as it get worse. When this happens you need to check the water ph if in hydroponics or the waste water out the bottom of you pots when you water in soil. They also sell soil ph meters that do an ok job for the most part.
Remember this, that additives and raise or lower ph in the water for you feed, nutrients only lower the PH. Always retest your mix at the end and never just dump additives or nutrients in the reservoirs always mix in water first then add it. As for dirt pre mix the day before water and make sure the ph is good.
Lime can take up to a year before you can see results in your plants. This is way to long unless you plan on taking a year to grow your plants. Also if you have to much lime it will be almost impossible to correct any ph problems in the soil. If you have to much lime in the soil just due a soil change out and start over it will be faster in the long run.
Nutrient Burns
This is another one of the biggest inflected pest problems in plants. It is caused by new growers not fully understanding how plants uptake nutrients. Here is a little story I tell people about nutrients and this applies to both organic and chemical fertilizer users.
Say you and you someone next door has a lawn that is kind of yellowing and not looking so good. So you both decide you need to feed your lawn some nutrients to get them green again. You decide to use chemical fertilizer on your lawn and your neighbor uses organic fertilizer on his in week one. You both wait a week and you don't see much change so you both add more on week two and wait to see that change.
Well your lawn starts to turn green faster because you used chemical fertilizers and the lawn.
So know your neighbor hits his lawn again in week 3 thinking he did not use enough. Now it is week 4 and you lawn is showing signs of chemical burn from the second batch of chemical fertilizer you put on your lawn and your neighbor is laughing at you because his is starting to look good, and he is telling you it is because you used chemical fertilizer and that’s why it burned.
So you go out and flood the lawn to get the chemical over dose out and make you lawn look good again, and it works a couple of day later your lawn looks good. But wait your neighbor's lawn is starting to die out from fertilizer burn also.
So he goes and floods his lawn to get rid of the fertilizer that is killing his lawn it works for a little while until that 2nd run of organics start to break down and burns his lawn again.
So he goes and floods again, but wait there is still a 3rd batch of organics that will break down as well. Do you think his lawn is dead? Or going to recover before winter set in? NO
It is faster to recover from a chemical fertilizer burn than organics, I not saying one is better than the other. You need to fully understand each one and how it breaks down for the plant to use it.
Plants only know one thing Salt Ions, chemical fertilizers are premade as salt ions and chelated for plants to intake fast. Organics for soil takes long times to break down, organics in hydroponics all have man made chelated items for the plants to use go figure.
So with any fertilizer program study study study before you just jump on board make sure it is going to work for your growing needs.
White Fly's
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White flies are by far the in the big three pest from nature you have to deal with. This little bugs get everywhere and lay eggs one just about every single leaf on a plant, infect the soil and growing media in hydroponics. I hate this with a passion.
Some people say using fly traps work, I don't think so there only good at showing you a small window of what's going on in your area of the plant. In most cases it is 10 times worse. By the time the fly trap shows you one for infected.
White flies suck the sap out of you plants from the root zone to the last leaf and it is hard to kill them. You can us insecticidal soaps or neem oil; this will stop them from flying around your plants it will also help in controlling the eggs. You can us other products to help with White flies, permethrin, fogger sprays, hot pepper wax, gnatrol, and neem soap. Fine stocking net covering your plants with natural predators, the easy one to control is lady bugs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Fungus Gnats
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Fungus gnats are in the top three pests as well. There just as bad as white flies, as in they infect everything that land on, it is very hard to kill them off. They start at the roots and start to kill off or lower the plants immune system to the point that root rot sets in when in hydroponics. This is caused by the gnats eating the fine hairs off the roots, this cause the plant to stop sending out enzymes to feed and stimulate the mycorrhiza in the rhizosphere of the root zone.
Fungus gnats lay eggs in the base of the plant in soil or any hydroponic media used. The eggs take around 4 to 5 days to hatch and work their way up the plant. They will compete with the plant for nutrients if you are running organics.
From July to August is the worst times for them, it is the peak of their active life cycle. So try to keep the windows shut during this times of the year will help a lot, using a silk stocking on the intake of inlet side of fresh air helps.
Some of the ways to kill them are simple the use of neem oil mixed with dawn dish soap will kill of the living gnats , another one for soil is a can of chew spread over the top of the soil. You can us other products to help with White flies, permethrin, fogger sprays, hot pepper wax, gnatrol, and neem soap.
Fine stocking net covering your plants with natural predators, the easy one to control is lady bugs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering
Spider Mites
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This is the last of the big three pest that I hate. Both indoors and outdoors this little bug can drive you out of your mind. I have read post after post on just about every plant related thread on the net and this is the single most asked question about how to kill them. I do believe this are almost as hard to kill as roaches, and if you very lived in dorm rooms in school, locked up, or in bad apartments you know what I am talking about.
Spider mites are the worst they will kill a plant faster than you can think. Once they start to lay eggs and eat your in big trouble, by the time you see the white little spots on you leaves they have all ready laid close to a 1000 eggs on the plant, it you catch at the point of seeing webs you need to change the way you look at your plants daily.
These do the same type of damage to the leaves as thrips the suck the chlorophyll out of the leaves. One of the biggest ways to get Spider mites is from soil; even some of the most expensive soils may have them. Even know they claim it does not have spider mites it could. The reason I say this is go to any hydroponics store and see where they stack the dirt and see if the cheap dirt is in the same building as the overpriced soil is. If yes then it is most likely infected.
If you tend to go places with lots of outdoor plants garden centers, you may be bringing home unwanted pets. If you get clones from people you should treat it as they have Spider mites.
I like take a soft bristle tooth brush and a glass of water when I get new clone from someone and brush the underside of the leaf on the new clones on day then spray them with neem oil and dawn dish soap and lock them away from the rest of the pants for a week and just watch.
Once again using a silk stocking on the intake of inlet side of fresh air helps.
Some of the ways to kill them are simple the use of neem oil mixed with dawn dish soap will kill of the living gnats , another one for soil is a can of chew spread over the top of the soil. You can us other products to help with White flies, permethrin, fogger sprays, hot pepper wax, gnatrol, and neem soap.
Fine stocking net covering your plants with natural predators, the easy one to control is lady bugs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering
Thrips
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This bug Is hard to kill of as well but not like spider mites, they do tend to live in nice thigh places and reproduce like rabbits. Thrips can be of two types, ones with wings and some without wings, but make no mistake they are thrips.
Unlike spider mites when thrips suck out chlorophyll the top of the leaves get this marble effect in the coloring of the leaf. As were spider mist look like someone just dusted the leaf with baking flour.
Once again using a silk stocking on the intake of inlet side of fresh air helps.
Some of the ways to kill them are simple the use of neem oil mixed with dawn dish soap will kill of the living gnats , another one for soil is a can of chew spread over the top of the soil. You can us other products to help with White flies, permethrin, fogger sprays, hot pepper wax, gnatrol, and neem soap. Fine stocking net covering your plants with natural predators, the easy one to control is lady bugs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering
Symphilids
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This little pest is deadly to plants, they are tan to white and look like a centipedes. They like to dig into your roots and eat all the root matter they can. They are mostly found in soils were people have added animal manure (sheep, cow, bat, chicken). Signs of having this infestation will be leaves falling in groups as the pant tries to save it self. To see if you have this pest is simple just water the plant and stir the top soil and if there there they will come to the top of the soil.
Potassium Silicate is one of the fastest ways to kill sympilids and there eggs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Caterpillars
Caterpillars feed on plant leaves, and the easiest way to get rid of them is to pick them off by hand and put them in a bucket of soapy water.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Slugs and Snails
Both slugs and snails travel by secreting a mucus or slime on which they glide. When you see the slime trail on your plants and have damage, then it was most likely caused by slugs or snails.
When your garden is very moist slugs and snails can live for a long time as this is the key to them living a long time. If you keep your garden not as moist and dark slugs and snails cannot live as long. They stay away from the sunlight along with hiding around moist dark areas in the garden.
They also hide in Mulches, short stubby plants, boards, and in the soil.
They come out mostly at night and on cloudy days. They feed by chewing holes into your leaves and can clip the edges of leaves and flowers.
Slugs and Snails are mostly pests of seedlings and herbaceous plants that are close to the ground. In order to confirm the damage was caused by slugs or snails look for a silvery trail of mucous.
It is best to water in the mornings, and always check under you ground cover when inspecting your plants.
To get rid of them just hand picking the ones you find work well, put them in a bucket of soapy water, salt works wonders to kill them as well. They do become resistant to snail bait traps and poison fast.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Leaf Miners
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Leaf miners are hard to get rid of once they find you, they are a chewing larvae that tunnel through leaves between the surfaces. They leave white squiggly lines into your leaves all the while planting there larvae in them making it hard to get rid of them.
Pick off leaves that are infected, and spray with fungicide and neem oil mix.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Scales
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Scales are 1/16 to 1/8 inch long and mostly brown or yellowish. When mature, they are motionless, enclosed in a waxy cover(scale).This waxy cover protects them when feeding on your plants.
They will secrete a honey like substance that attract ants. A good sign you may have scales is sooty mold. To get rid of them us a stiff bristle brush with soapy water and denatured alcohol.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
If you have a plant that is sick almost any of this pest or disease I would use the following foliage spray to help cure most problems you have.
Mixture per gallon of water of ph at 6:
3 ML of Pro-tek
15 ML of neem oil
Still under construction
Over watering
I am going to start this off by saying this; one of the biggest pests to a plant is a new grower. The reason I say this is they tend to over water or over nut the water or both when feeding.
Let's start with the main reason most plants get sick or die. Over watering them, by doing this you deprive the roots of the plant the much needed and wanted oxygen they crave in the root zone. The first signs of over watering are droopy leaves; this will follow with a few new signs of some type of nutrient deficiency. At this point you should stop watering the plant stick a fork in the soil if indoors and move it forward and reverse to open up the dirt so air can get to the roots. If it is out doors us a pitch fork to do the same thing.
When you water use just enough to see a little start to come out the bottom of the pot, you don't want it pouring out as this is too much. At this point I would pick the pot to see how heavy it is, this is why it should feel right after watering. I would wait a few days after watering your plant and stick my finger in the soil to the second knuckle and see how much moister is in the soil. If it feels wet and some moister is on my finger when I pull it out it is still ok. I would keep checking every day after this point until my finger felt damp but no moister on my finger. This is when I would pick the pot back up and see what it weight is like because this is when it is time to water again.
The other way is to buy a moister meter from any local hardware store or hydroponic store around you.
If you are in hydroponics you should find a way to increase you oxygen levels or more air baths. I will talk more on this in a minute.
Under Watering
This is an easy way to test if the leaves look droopy just stick your finger in the soil if it is dry water it. Keep a close eye as to how often it does this, this may bee a sign you are not watching you plant as well as you should. Plus just picking up the pot will also tell you if it feels really light.
Root Rot
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Number one reason of root rot is lack of oxygen in the root zone. This can be due to over watering, to high of temps in the soil, to low temp in the soil. Both in soil or hydroponics you should try to keep the temps around 65 to 70 deg F. any swing in either direction will cause root rot to invade your plant.
Poor soil drainage is another problem that will big the pain on you.
Once you find out you have rot you need to find out what caused it, take care of the problem so it does not come back and hurt you later. Some people say to use H20 (hydrogen peroxide) when watering or adding it to the reservoir, but I find it is way too hard on the plant and will cause it to make the leaves droopy. I like to use PRO-Tek from Dyna-Gro.
Use 1 to 2 ML per gallon in all hydroponics systems and even soil growing.
As for dirt it is best to add it every watering until the root rot is gone and then from their use you own judgments. If you are organic nutrients and you keep getting root rot after you killed it off the first time, stop using organics. You should not be using organics indoors any way they take way too long to break down in the short cycle of bloom indoors. ( I will get into this in another thread)
Keeping products like Superthrive and Potassium Silicate will help the plant build up defenses to protect it from attacks. Also water chillers work wonders if you are running larger plant counts.
Damping Off
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Damping off is caused by a group of organisms that effect seedlings or clones. Stems of any afflicted seedlings or clones will blacken or shrivel at or near the base of the plants. Eventually your plant will fall over, there is no cure for damping off.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering
PH Problems
If your plant leaves start to twist and get covers in spots that are brown and yellowish with red in them it is a ph problem. It may not show all the spot colors at once but the twisted leave is a dead giveaway. Improper PH will lock out nutrients and the plant will not fix itself until the ph is back to normal.
The problem starts with the big fan leaves at the ends and then moves to smaller leaves as it get worse. When this happens you need to check the water ph if in hydroponics or the waste water out the bottom of you pots when you water in soil. They also sell soil ph meters that do an ok job for the most part.
Remember this, that additives and raise or lower ph in the water for you feed, nutrients only lower the PH. Always retest your mix at the end and never just dump additives or nutrients in the reservoirs always mix in water first then add it. As for dirt pre mix the day before water and make sure the ph is good.
Lime can take up to a year before you can see results in your plants. This is way to long unless you plan on taking a year to grow your plants. Also if you have to much lime it will be almost impossible to correct any ph problems in the soil. If you have to much lime in the soil just due a soil change out and start over it will be faster in the long run.
Nutrient Burns
This is another one of the biggest inflected pest problems in plants. It is caused by new growers not fully understanding how plants uptake nutrients. Here is a little story I tell people about nutrients and this applies to both organic and chemical fertilizer users.
Say you and you someone next door has a lawn that is kind of yellowing and not looking so good. So you both decide you need to feed your lawn some nutrients to get them green again. You decide to use chemical fertilizer on your lawn and your neighbor uses organic fertilizer on his in week one. You both wait a week and you don't see much change so you both add more on week two and wait to see that change.
Well your lawn starts to turn green faster because you used chemical fertilizers and the lawn.
So know your neighbor hits his lawn again in week 3 thinking he did not use enough. Now it is week 4 and you lawn is showing signs of chemical burn from the second batch of chemical fertilizer you put on your lawn and your neighbor is laughing at you because his is starting to look good, and he is telling you it is because you used chemical fertilizer and that’s why it burned.
So you go out and flood the lawn to get the chemical over dose out and make you lawn look good again, and it works a couple of day later your lawn looks good. But wait your neighbor's lawn is starting to die out from fertilizer burn also.
So he goes and floods his lawn to get rid of the fertilizer that is killing his lawn it works for a little while until that 2nd run of organics start to break down and burns his lawn again.
So he goes and floods again, but wait there is still a 3rd batch of organics that will break down as well. Do you think his lawn is dead? Or going to recover before winter set in? NO
It is faster to recover from a chemical fertilizer burn than organics, I not saying one is better than the other. You need to fully understand each one and how it breaks down for the plant to use it.
Plants only know one thing Salt Ions, chemical fertilizers are premade as salt ions and chelated for plants to intake fast. Organics for soil takes long times to break down, organics in hydroponics all have man made chelated items for the plants to use go figure.
So with any fertilizer program study study study before you just jump on board make sure it is going to work for your growing needs.
White Fly's
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White flies are by far the in the big three pest from nature you have to deal with. This little bugs get everywhere and lay eggs one just about every single leaf on a plant, infect the soil and growing media in hydroponics. I hate this with a passion.
Some people say using fly traps work, I don't think so there only good at showing you a small window of what's going on in your area of the plant. In most cases it is 10 times worse. By the time the fly trap shows you one for infected.
White flies suck the sap out of you plants from the root zone to the last leaf and it is hard to kill them. You can us insecticidal soaps or neem oil; this will stop them from flying around your plants it will also help in controlling the eggs. You can us other products to help with White flies, permethrin, fogger sprays, hot pepper wax, gnatrol, and neem soap. Fine stocking net covering your plants with natural predators, the easy one to control is lady bugs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Fungus Gnats
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Fungus gnats are in the top three pests as well. There just as bad as white flies, as in they infect everything that land on, it is very hard to kill them off. They start at the roots and start to kill off or lower the plants immune system to the point that root rot sets in when in hydroponics. This is caused by the gnats eating the fine hairs off the roots, this cause the plant to stop sending out enzymes to feed and stimulate the mycorrhiza in the rhizosphere of the root zone.
Fungus gnats lay eggs in the base of the plant in soil or any hydroponic media used. The eggs take around 4 to 5 days to hatch and work their way up the plant. They will compete with the plant for nutrients if you are running organics.
From July to August is the worst times for them, it is the peak of their active life cycle. So try to keep the windows shut during this times of the year will help a lot, using a silk stocking on the intake of inlet side of fresh air helps.
Some of the ways to kill them are simple the use of neem oil mixed with dawn dish soap will kill of the living gnats , another one for soil is a can of chew spread over the top of the soil. You can us other products to help with White flies, permethrin, fogger sprays, hot pepper wax, gnatrol, and neem soap.
Fine stocking net covering your plants with natural predators, the easy one to control is lady bugs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering
Spider Mites
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This is the last of the big three pest that I hate. Both indoors and outdoors this little bug can drive you out of your mind. I have read post after post on just about every plant related thread on the net and this is the single most asked question about how to kill them. I do believe this are almost as hard to kill as roaches, and if you very lived in dorm rooms in school, locked up, or in bad apartments you know what I am talking about.
Spider mites are the worst they will kill a plant faster than you can think. Once they start to lay eggs and eat your in big trouble, by the time you see the white little spots on you leaves they have all ready laid close to a 1000 eggs on the plant, it you catch at the point of seeing webs you need to change the way you look at your plants daily.
These do the same type of damage to the leaves as thrips the suck the chlorophyll out of the leaves. One of the biggest ways to get Spider mites is from soil; even some of the most expensive soils may have them. Even know they claim it does not have spider mites it could. The reason I say this is go to any hydroponics store and see where they stack the dirt and see if the cheap dirt is in the same building as the overpriced soil is. If yes then it is most likely infected.
If you tend to go places with lots of outdoor plants garden centers, you may be bringing home unwanted pets. If you get clones from people you should treat it as they have Spider mites.
I like take a soft bristle tooth brush and a glass of water when I get new clone from someone and brush the underside of the leaf on the new clones on day then spray them with neem oil and dawn dish soap and lock them away from the rest of the pants for a week and just watch.
Once again using a silk stocking on the intake of inlet side of fresh air helps.
Some of the ways to kill them are simple the use of neem oil mixed with dawn dish soap will kill of the living gnats , another one for soil is a can of chew spread over the top of the soil. You can us other products to help with White flies, permethrin, fogger sprays, hot pepper wax, gnatrol, and neem soap.
Fine stocking net covering your plants with natural predators, the easy one to control is lady bugs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering
Thrips
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This bug Is hard to kill of as well but not like spider mites, they do tend to live in nice thigh places and reproduce like rabbits. Thrips can be of two types, ones with wings and some without wings, but make no mistake they are thrips.
Unlike spider mites when thrips suck out chlorophyll the top of the leaves get this marble effect in the coloring of the leaf. As were spider mist look like someone just dusted the leaf with baking flour.
Once again using a silk stocking on the intake of inlet side of fresh air helps.
Some of the ways to kill them are simple the use of neem oil mixed with dawn dish soap will kill of the living gnats , another one for soil is a can of chew spread over the top of the soil. You can us other products to help with White flies, permethrin, fogger sprays, hot pepper wax, gnatrol, and neem soap. Fine stocking net covering your plants with natural predators, the easy one to control is lady bugs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering
Symphilids
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This little pest is deadly to plants, they are tan to white and look like a centipedes. They like to dig into your roots and eat all the root matter they can. They are mostly found in soils were people have added animal manure (sheep, cow, bat, chicken). Signs of having this infestation will be leaves falling in groups as the pant tries to save it self. To see if you have this pest is simple just water the plant and stir the top soil and if there there they will come to the top of the soil.
Potassium Silicate is one of the fastest ways to kill sympilids and there eggs.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Caterpillars
Caterpillars feed on plant leaves, and the easiest way to get rid of them is to pick them off by hand and put them in a bucket of soapy water.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Slugs and Snails
Both slugs and snails travel by secreting a mucus or slime on which they glide. When you see the slime trail on your plants and have damage, then it was most likely caused by slugs or snails.
When your garden is very moist slugs and snails can live for a long time as this is the key to them living a long time. If you keep your garden not as moist and dark slugs and snails cannot live as long. They stay away from the sunlight along with hiding around moist dark areas in the garden.
They also hide in Mulches, short stubby plants, boards, and in the soil.
They come out mostly at night and on cloudy days. They feed by chewing holes into your leaves and can clip the edges of leaves and flowers.
Slugs and Snails are mostly pests of seedlings and herbaceous plants that are close to the ground. In order to confirm the damage was caused by slugs or snails look for a silvery trail of mucous.
It is best to water in the mornings, and always check under you ground cover when inspecting your plants.
To get rid of them just hand picking the ones you find work well, put them in a bucket of soapy water, salt works wonders to kill them as well. They do become resistant to snail bait traps and poison fast.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Leaf Miners
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Leaf miners are hard to get rid of once they find you, they are a chewing larvae that tunnel through leaves between the surfaces. They leave white squiggly lines into your leaves all the while planting there larvae in them making it hard to get rid of them.
Pick off leaves that are infected, and spray with fungicide and neem oil mix.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
Scales
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Scales are 1/16 to 1/8 inch long and mostly brown or yellowish. When mature, they are motionless, enclosed in a waxy cover(scale).This waxy cover protects them when feeding on your plants.
They will secrete a honey like substance that attract ants. A good sign you may have scales is sooty mold. To get rid of them us a stiff bristle brush with soapy water and denatured alcohol.
Beefing up a plants defense is your best bet at protecting plant. Some preventive measures are foliage feeding with a little dawn dish soap or neem oil in it. Potassium silicate with the fertilizer program, and not over watering the soil and letting it dry out a bit before the next watering.
If you have a plant that is sick almost any of this pest or disease I would use the following foliage spray to help cure most problems you have.
Mixture per gallon of water of ph at 6:
3 ML of Pro-tek
15 ML of neem oil
Still under construction
