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Advice needed ...Plants destroyed by insects

WickedMojo

WickedMojo

Hi everyone the past week has been hell on some of my newer plants I was out of town and came back to an infestation, so I grabbed my spray bottle and neem/soap mixture and started spraying my plants all the leaves looked healthy however as I sprayed they started dropping off!!

Alot of plants have browning under in the leaves but the top sides look good, I'm thinking spider mites?? anyway I was able to nurse some of the leafless plants back to health and they are now showing new growth, the bugs seem to be gone. are these plants doomed? any advice would be helpful, I had no bugs issues last season but this year they seem to be attacking with a vengence. I lost alot of good plants :( I'm just glad I over grew and still have a decent crop size, lost all my 7's though gonna have to start some more.

Congo black starting to get new leaf growth
congo1.jpg

underside of T.Scorp showing browning which is present on alot of my plants
tscorp1.jpg

top side of T.Scorp
tscorp2.jpg
 
upon further research it seems the underside browning may be cause by nematodes or blight if this true is there any way to stop it?

Another shot of some of the browning on leaves, this is on a Bishops Crown

bcrown1.jpg
 
It looks like you might have thrips. They are tiny little buggers and are hard to detect. Spider mites are super tiny too, but they leave webs all over the bottom of the leaves, me and them are not on speaking terms right now as they have been a thorn in my side all winter long. As for the leafless plants, they should come back nicely. The biggest thing to remember is to not over water them, they won't use as much water with out leaves.

As for blight, I'd segregate the affected plants and if it is indeed blight and not insects the best course of action unfortunately is destruction. There are some copper based sprays out there which may be successful against it.
 
Thanks for the Info Matt, can thrips be dealt with in the same manner as aphids? also I hope that browning is not blight because that means almost all my plants have it :(
 
Just went and checked more plants they all have different stages of that brown crap, and it looks like it starts out as black specs almost like its dirt then starts filling in and on the areas that get completely covered the leaves starts to die (seems to start dying at the leaf tip first) and looks like fert burns but its not.
I'm sick to my stomach at the thought of losing all my plants could it maybe be a fungus?
I have had a hard time finding anything on the web that matches it.
 
My wife just made an observation, she noted that the brown crap under the leaves didnt show up until after I sprayed the aphids with neem, could this possibly be some kinda "neem burn" ? is that even possible? I dunno Im just grabbing straws here trying to find an answer.
 
If the neem was too concentrated and exposed to the sun you can definitely get burning on the leaves. The tip would show the most damage as that is where it would collect the most. Just watch your plants very carefully and see how they do. The biggest indicator of a problem will be if the damage starts showing up on any new growth or other plants that didn't get sprayed.
 
WickedMojo said:
My wife just made an observation, she noted that the brown crap under the leaves didnt show up until after I sprayed the aphids with neem, could this possibly be some kinda "neem burn" ? is that even possible? I dunno Im just grabbing straws here trying to find an answer.
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Bingo. I have the same issue with my plants. I noticed it happening last year and all through this year when applying safers soap, and all the 'wonder treatment home remedies' I've found on the internet and on this board. The "burn" marks always show up where the treatment is able to pool or build up. I've been battling aphids and aphids alone all year. To me the wonder treatments do more damage to the plants than the aphids so I've switched to controlling them with blasts of water from the kitchen sprayer. The downside is that the little buggars hold on so tight that I end up blasting leaves off my plant with the spray. I'm giving them all a good dose of liquid Sevin as soon as the plants go out into the greenhouse. Other than ladybugs, Sevin's the only thing I've had luck with in controlling them.
 
Thanks Blister, I think Im gonna breakdown and use Sevin when the next aphid outbreak happens Ive already found new eggs on some other plants and have been hand washing them off leaves today with a mild soap and water solution, I guess the sevin will take care of the mite issue as well.
the plants all seem stunted from the infestation they all should be much bigger by now but have kinda stopped growing. on the bright side maybe all the stress will make for even hotter pods lol,
 
I battled aphids last year and finally order Neem and bought some Safer Soap locally. Mixed up a batch in a 3 gallon garden sprayer, following the recommendations on the label. Any time I saw a white thing move, all the plants got a good blast with the sprayed pumped up. It took a couple of days to get them under control and maybe a week to eradicate them. When used as directed, I've never seen any significant leaf damage.

Mike
 
I have been battling aphids since the plants were first potted up. Safer soap just wasn't cutting it, and the neem was more effective, but didn't eradicate them. Neither did Sevin. They just kept coming back in huge numbers. But I was outside yesterday and watch a single ladybug wipe clean a Douglah plant in a few minutes going from leaf to leaf making sure it didn't leave any behind and then move to the Douglah next to it. Thank God the ladybugs are finally showing up! Ladybugs are definately the best I have seen for aphids.

Good luck with your plants. I hope they are rebound for you.
jacob
 
yeah I have a feeling this year is gonna be a constant battle with the aphids, I think once they start growing bigger I'm gonna have to take some cuttings and make some clones to replace the ones that didn't make it through the onslaught.
 
Cool idea Al, I had heard about the aspirin thing before but was skeptical, nice to know it really works, I'll have to give it a try.
 
Blister said:
Bingo. I have the same issue with my plants. I noticed it happening last year and all through this year when applying safers soap, and all the 'wonder treatment home remedies' I've found on the internet and on this board. The "burn" marks always show up where the treatment is able to pool or build up. I've been battling aphids and aphids alone all year. To me the wonder treatments do more damage to the plants than the aphids so I've switched to controlling them with blasts of water from the kitchen sprayer. The downside is that the little buggars hold on so tight that I end up blasting leaves off my plant with the spray. I'm giving them all a good dose of liquid Sevin as soon as the plants go out into the greenhouse. Other than ladybugs, Sevin's the only thing I've had luck with in controlling them.
Click to expand...

I spray in shade, wait a bit for stuff to work then hit with plain water. Works good so far.
 
I will second ladybugs... At the beginning of last season my plants got covered with aphids. I was squishing them everyday and they just kept on coming. I bought 1000 ladybugs at the local nursery and had no worries after that.
 
The aspirin looks like something to try, but it only says 1 and 1/2 aspirin per 2 gallons. It doesn't state what size aspirin and aspirin comes in several different sizes/milligrams.
 
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