Mealybugs are well known as indoor garden pest mostly infecting succulents and other indoor or greenhouse planted veggies. Mealy soft are soft body, wingless insect surviving mostly in temperate climate and they appear like cotton white on plant leaves, stem even fruits. Attacks by mealybugs make your plant looks like snowy or full of white spots. Getting rid of mealybug on plant is quite tough because they spread quickly from plant to plant. Relax, this article will the sharing simple and how to get rid of mealybugs and save your plant.
You may want to see: Scale Insects: 11 way to kill scale insect (Updated for 2019).
Identifying Mealybugs
Mealybugs are of male and female; the female and adult mealybug is visible with a size of about 1/10 – 1/4 inch while the male species are tiny winged rarely seen on plants. Adults mealybugs are oval shaped insect with a white or great shiny wax while the nymphs of yellow colour without wax. Mealybugs source their food by sucking sap from plants leaves or stem.
Getting rid and control of Mealybugs
#1 Don’t’ overfertilize or over water your plants
This can result into high nitrogen level and soft growth thereby attracting mealybugs. Therefore, you can prevent mealybug from attacking your plants by reducing the rate of fertilizer application on your plant.
#2 Go Organic
By using vinegar and water you are not going to cause any harm to your plants and, you’ll get the leaves on your plants to shimmer and look beautiful. Many people use vinegar and water for a lot of things throughout the home and disinfecting your plants from mealybugs is just another one of the great things it can do.
#3 Soapy Water
This is a popular DIY solution to getting rid of bugs and pest in your garden. All you need to do is get and organic insecticidal soap, mix with water and spray on your plants. It it’s a small plant or succulent, you can rinse in the water or wash in a sink with the soapy water. Please note some soap can damage sensitive plants so it advises to test on one or two leaves first before applying all over.
#4 Neem Oil
Popularly known as natural pest control product, it is highly effective for getting rid of mealybugs,kills aphids, powdery mildew or spider mites and serves as residual pest prevention.
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