If a white coating spreads out on your orchid, gardening alarm bells should be ringing. It is almost certain that your flower beauty is infested with mealybugs. You can find out here how to act correctly and fight the pests with ecological means.
White coating on orchids is usually a sign of aphid infestation
All symptoms at a glance
Before you take countermeasures, please use the following symptoms to check whether the white coating is actually mealybugs:
- In the early stages of infestation, there are numerous tiny cotton balls on the leaves and bulbs
- In the further course, the cottony bumps combine to form white, greasy webs
- Mealybugs underneath suck the plant sap, causing the leaves to wilt and the shoots to become crippled
In the end, the orchid is completely covered with white webs, which serve as a waxy protective shell for the pests.
Combat mealybugs effectively - this is how it works in harmony with nature
Orchids are usually sensitive to the concentrated load of chemical insecticides. This applies in particular to thin-leaved species and varieties. In practice, however, the following ecological means have proven themselves to gently remove the white coating from the plants:
- Immediately isolate the affected orchid from other houseplants
- Treat the plant in the quarantine room with a solution of 1 liter of water, 10 ml of spirit and 15 ml of soft soap
- Alternatively, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to 1 l of water and 1 drop of washing-up liquid as an emulsifier
As a precaution, please do not spray the solution on the orchid. Instead, apply the agent to all infected parts of the plant with a fine brush. The spirit dissolves the waxy protective armor and is quite aggressive. The control agent based on olive oil should therefore be used on orchids with very thin leaves.
tips
In most cases, mealybugs are introduced into the collection with a newly acquired orchid. Even experienced and highly competent specialist dealers are not immune to the malware. Therefore, when buying an orchid, take a close look at the plant. Don't be afraid to examine the plant with a magnifying glass. Once the scale insects are in the house, you can often not get rid of the plague for years.