Smugly, I used the drench of Bayer Tree and Shrub in my GH in early spring...and recently had an infestation on H. calycina and H. heuschkeliana. Strange...but only these two. Investigating, I find that in order to get 100% PERFECT results from this drench, one must sit the pot in a saucer or a pan, pour the mix thru the pot and let the pot stand in its' run off for 5-10 mins.
HELLO? - with 2000 plants, I don't think so!!!
So...I bit the bullet and bought Marathon, a granular form of Imidocloprid that I sprinkle in every pot and then water it in....and at the same time, I am doing the drench/soak method for the large plants.... Makes me feel accomplished to do it...but...man...it is a pain in the patooty.
Thought I would pass this on....
Lesson in the war on Mealybugs -
I'm sorry! I hate mealies!!!
I do too!!! And by now, they hate ME!!
good luck with the marathon. I use it for my gesneriads, but find that it doesn't work well in epiphytic mixes because the granules wash down and out of the pots. And like the bayer product, any water flowing through and out of the pot will take the systemic with it.....
For the orchids, I just use the bayer product in my watering for a few consecutive waterings, and try to be stingy with the water to minimize run off. Application is annoying, but I still think it's very effective on mealies and it's less hazardous than the other systemics out there, so.......
GREAT information..thanks! Good points to remember.
With the bayer...DO you mix it at the strength they suggest?
I am going to be doing that this week for the first time
Though I have some pots that I have NO way of sitting in run off..they are BIG
No Lorry....you mix it one ounce per gallon of water. (Shake it well first)
I use an old heavy plastic juice jug that I marked all up with poison symbols all over it. The cap doesn't quite hold an ounce so I use a little disposable thing I got out of a protine drink to measure it (I marked that too & store all these things in a bag in the garage so no one will use them for anything else). I use a turkey baster to water the small ones & just dump it into the big ones. I didn't worry about it running on through. It worked anyway. I guess they soaked up enough of it to make it work.
Another helpful hint on using this stuff is to put the water in the container first if your water pressure is good like mine because this stuff foams up "big time" and I found myself having to wait and wait for the foam to go down each time I sprayed the water in the container. Now I fill first, measure the stuff in...and stir it up.
Also, unless you are doing ALL of them, you may want to mark the ones you have done so you don't do them over & over. I tie a little piece of ribbon on the pot hanger or the stem of the plant.
Good luck.
Marcy
if anyone is using it to battle regular (non-soil) mealies, another trick to remember is that the systemic works best on parts of the plant that are growing - older/woody parts don't take up as much water and don't carry the water to the outer layers where the mealies are. If you have partly woody plants, then it's wise to do a foliar application of a contact kill as well.
don't we love mealies ;-)
Good advice. I am using big aluminum roasting pans to sit the big pots in....
Also...the soil should be 'damp'...absorbs better.
Carol
Thanks for the tips everyone.
I am going to try treating everyone tonight.
I watered yesterday so the soil should still be moist :)
I'm ready to give my bella a nice dose of BTS. I have been spraying her with alcohol, but it's not doing any good. I can't believe how infested she is..
I've had a cutting (received it early this spring) in quarantine ever since I got it. It had ONE mealy bug on it when I got it and I treated it with systemic bug spray twice after I removed the bug. Look what I found today when checking it! After more than 3 months... I really enjoyed spraying this little fellow! :-))
Christina
Ewww, I keep squishing them with my fingers when I don't have a swab at hand. I forget there not just a ball of cotten. After seeing this close up, I think I wont touch them anymore, I just got shivers. LOL I kinda like swabbing them off, one by one... Good therapy !!!!
Ewwwwwwwwww...yuck! I haven't ever seen one that close up either....
I don't know what it is about bella that makes it so yummy to mealies, but I grew it for years and had the same problem - it was the one Hoya I could never kick them on. So I finally gave up =( I love the flowers on bella, but it just isn't worth the trouble for me. Seems like people who can grow them outside have much more success, anyway. Mine always bloomed fine for me, but it never got very big (partly because I was always whacking back parts with mealy damage...)
Now my biggest mealy-magnet is lacunosa. Treated her with Bayers a few weeks ago, which made her drop all her buds. But I think I MAY have the mealies licked (crossing fingers...) I've decided mealies are like roaches - if life as we knew it ended today, roaches and mealies would survive...
Denise in Omaha
My biggest mealie magnet is H. chlorantha - don't know what it is about it's placement, my watering schedule, or what, but the mealies love to hide out and snack. I swear I am spraying that thing with alcohol once a week.
Well I took Ms Bella outside yesterday. Don't know how she will survive the heat outside, but she is right up next to the mister and in deep shade. Anyways, I had some Bayer rose systemic spray, and really sprayed her good with it. I hope it takes care of them all. I was thinking I would wake up this morning and all the leaves would be gone... But she looks good. The alcohol just wasn't doing the job, as I have been spraying her for over a month. I think they were just getting bigger :O... They must love the stuff...
Christine, a lady I know had a really bad infestesion of mealies. She would try and try to get rid of them on her two orchids. Come to find out they were living in the cracks of the stand she had them on. I spray my iron plant stands with alcohol too.
I had a few mealies in the greenhouse last winter. I have a small amount of cygon left, but, do not like to use it in winter as the smell lingers and the greenhouse is my escape from the "boys." I spent a Saturday and Sunday taking plants one by one to the shower. I first hosed them off, sprayed with Scrubbing Bubbles, hosed again and then treated with Both the Bayer T&S and spray. It really knocked them out!
My friend Lesli got a huge bucket, that she filled with water and Cygon. She dunked and soaked all her hoyas in this bucket and let then hang under a shade tree. She did not see a mealie all winter! I wonder why you could not do a similar dunk with Bayer? If you uses a shallow tub, and sink the pot to the rim, the pot could sit in the tub several hours.
Mel, letting the pots 'soak' in the BT&S is the proper way to do it (see first post) and the most effective. Watering it in and letting the water run out the bottom is not. I am using the Marathon on the smaller pots because there are so many to do the soaking bit to. I leave them sit in about 2" of the mixed BT&S. I guess if you only have a few pots, you could soak all of them.
Carol and Meltn, how long do you have them to sit in the BT&S?
I let them sit from 5 - 15 mins...sometimes overnight if I forget....
has anyone found that any of the hoyas dislike BT&S? (There always seems to be a difficult one in the family.....)
All of mine seem fine with it. However...I do not grow H. linearis (we have a personality problem)...but all the others are fine with it.
Ann, I have not tried the method listed above, however, would think dunking the pots for an hour would saturate the soil.
I think one can use a common sense approach here. If the mix you are using is one that the water runs right on through like it would an orchid mix or if the soil is so compacted that the water is draining right on through, then you need to "soak" the plant by letting the water sit in the saucer until it is reabsorbed into the soil, or dunk the plant until it soaks up the solution. If however, your mix readily absorbs water and stays moist for a couple of days, then the mix is going to get absorbed into the roots OK anyway, so no need to soak.
The main thing to remember is that the roots need the mix to be around them in moist soil for enough time to drink it up and send it to the leaves to poison the little buggers feeding on it.
Marcy
'Saturation' is the whole purpose here. It is the only way it works - but that is only the opinion of the Agricultural Agent (and all of the growers) here. Marcy is correct...as my medium is very lose and made up of a lot of orchidbark, I only win with the longer time the plant stays in the BT&S.
Wonderful explanations everyone. This info is so helpful in the quest to eradicate the pests!