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What the heck are these white things on the bottom of a leaf?

U

UltraZelda64

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to describe it for now--I asked my mom where the old cell phone is for a pic of the leaf, but apparently she's busy, so screw it. I'll see if I can explain it decently to where a photo may not be needed, or else I'll try to get the phone later.

Either way, plant affected is the Tabasco. Huge plant, over a yard tall. Top of affected leaf (toward the bottom of the plant, near the soil) looked perfectly fine, it wasn't until I lifted it to look underneath when I saw a white, fuzzy looking patch, almost circular. And even then even the bottom looks perfectly fine aside from this weird patch. Afraid that it may be eggs of a pest or something, I took the leaf off the plant and set it upside-down in the trash can. Looking closer, the white patch appears to be made of dozens of little white "rings" bound closely together, and must have been somehow fastened to the leaf by an insect as they all stayed attached to the leaf. There is a dark black bug of some sort, can't really tell what it is, right beside it. Hasn't moved at all, so either it's dead or I haven't scared it. Either way, it doesn't look like a spider from what I can tell. It's bigger than an aphid in size.

At first from a distance I thought it was a spider web, but I've never heard of a spider web made up of somewhat-wide rings of silk. Has anyone seen something like this and know what it is? If a pic is required I'll see if I can get a pic pretty soon (but I don't know how well it'll turn out, being from a cell phone). My best guess was eggs maybe, but since when are eggs shaped as rings?
 
Hey ultra a pic would really help anyone to try to figure out what you got.Best of luck Rich
 
last season i got them .they dont affect there growth or production; well i'm not sure. i havent seen how any 1 varietie does without them. a few of mine had them .get a spray bottle with soap and ,water . to keep them away ,if you have pepper powder put a teaspoon in the mix . and spray on the leaf. make sure it's soapy. rub the leaf gently to remove the white stuff and spray agan to clean it. spray around it aswell to kill the bugs. that might still be present wait about 7 - 13 minutes and wash it all off with water. spray the top of the soil too.
 
Heh... just my luck. I hate phones/cameras. She gave me an actual camera, but the batteries were dead. Replaced them, and the flash made the whole image white and impossible to make anything out... before finally those batteries died completely after a couple minutes with not a single good photo. Then... I had to wait for the cell phone to charge because it hasn't been used in weeks (it's been turned off and we've been using a different one, but of course the camera and SD slot still work). I did that and was able to take a couple pics, but they're blurry as all hell (can't make anything out) and now the phone is dying again. So I'll see if I can take a halfway decent one later. But with my luck using these junk cell phone cameras... I probably won't be able to post anything of any use whatsoever. If only I could get the focus set to take a clear close-up shot...

Grr.... I ****ing hate cell phones and cameras... need a good, proper camera, but who knows how much one of those costs.
 
Might be scale or mealy bugs-there are tons of different ones.
Some look like fuzzy white porcupines,others are different colors...

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/scale_insect.aspx

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&expIds=17259,17315,23628,23670,26637,26761,26849,26869,27126,27404,27510,27520,27562&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=mealy+bug+pictures&cp=5&qe=bWVhbHkgcGljdHVyZXM&qesig=DlXv57SQ0lEwpgeLNDrLIg&pkc=AFgZ2tnGlwDLiuh2MVnk0SZUmvO49Itz9BiT5-siLI7aIIEwpFim4I0H5c4jQiZywP9T8seSwXdFxWkJvUU9k4s5FqeRXrgovA&wrapid=tljp1289440114204020&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=10vbTLCuI4y-sAPY9dTlAw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCUQsAQwAA&biw=1020&bih=583
 
smokemaster said:
Might be scale or mealy bugs-there are tons of different ones.
Some look like fuzzy white porcupines,others are different colors...

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/scale_insect.aspx

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&expIds=17259,17315,23628,23670,26637,26761,26849,26869,27126,27404,27510,27520,27562&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=mealy+bug+pictures&cp=5&qe=bWVhbHkgcGljdHVyZXM&qesig=DlXv57SQ0lEwpgeLNDrLIg&pkc=AFgZ2tnGlwDLiuh2MVnk0SZUmvO49Itz9BiT5-siLI7aIIEwpFim4I0H5c4jQiZywP9T8seSwXdFxWkJvUU9k4s5FqeRXrgovA&wrapid=tljp1289440114204020&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=10vbTLCuI4y-sAPY9dTlAw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCUQsAQwAA&biw=1020&bih=583
Click to expand...
None of the images resemble quite what I am seeing. Literally, a bunch of white rings in one spot, forming what looks like a white patch. I attempted to load up the images into my computer and see if they're really that bad. They are... no amount of editing and sharpening in the GIMP is going to fix it; the focus is way off and I've given up trying to change the focus on the phone (it doesn't seem to allow it--no surprise). I'm hoping my sister knows where some AA batteries are for her camera... I think I might be able to get something with halfway decent quality with that camera, as long as I turn off the flash. Hopefully. I'd like to know what these things are. Meanwhile, the bug beside the patch of rings hasn't moved a bit, so it must be dead.
 
Wow. Now this is really funny. I snapped a photo which, when loaded up on the computer, actually retained a decent amount of its definition. The tool used? A cheap-ass, crappy 1" diameter magnifying lens, which you can see around the image, held in between the lens of the phone's camera and the leaf. Here it is:

 
Are these ones affecting you ??
a_dispe1.jpg


when it get worst u will start seeing these also.
a_dispe2.jpg


the adults are like these.
a_dispe3.jpg


this year i got the same problem!!
 
Hey Ultra, It is lady bugs and they are a good thing indeed! Here is a pic from my garden earlier this year.
They had just hatched! :)

7-25-10babyladybugs.jpg

Kevin
 
wayright said:
Hey Ultra, It is lady bugs and they are a good thing indeed! Here is a pic from my garden earlier this year.
They had just hatched! :)

7-25-10babyladybugs.jpg

Kevin
Click to expand...
Cool, thanks for the answer. So I take it they already hatched? Wonder when? Haven't seen any in the house, so it must've been a while ago...
 
NOT lady bugs, they may look like them but that is not what lady bugs hatch into, they start as larva from the eggs then transform into ladybugs they dont hatch looking like that

heres what ladybug eggs and larva look like

imgp9353a_800.jpg


then from larva they goto pupa stage like this

lady-bug-pupa-2.jpg


then finally into this (newly emerged ladybugs have NO spots)
lady-bug-1.jpg


heres a pic of the entire ladybug life cycle

Ladybug-Larvae-to-Adult-Big.jpg
 
Cool WM, I dont know what I showed you then Ultra ! :) but thats the bugs that came from those eggs.Whatever they are.
Kevin
 
wayright said:
Cool WM, I dont know what I showed you then Ultra ! :) but thats the bugs that came from those eggs.Whatever they are.
Kevin
Click to expand...
Yeah I have since looked up "ladybug eggs" on Google and confusingly didn't find anything but yellow eggs. Hmm. Oh well, I'm sure they're gone by now.
 
I tried looking up what those white round eggs were but I havent had much luck, it must be some sort of lady bug "mimic" insect and usually mimics are actual opposites of the critter they are pretending to be, kinda like non-venomous snakes mimicking venomous ones and harmful insects mimicking beneficial ones, both do it for survival.

My rule of thumb is this.... it may not always be the case but if you find a bug in your garden thats trying to look like another bug, then chances are its intentions are opposite of the bug its trying to pretend to be :) ..so I just eliminate 'em, better to be safe then sorry
 
That sucks! I thought they were lady's and I raced back to the garden to put em all over my plants. lol. I dont know what they grew to be, I had lotsa grown lady's this year, and spiders and hornworms but nothing else that I noticed.
 
they may not be destructive to ur plants, they may just use them as a medium to propagate, who knows what they are, but we do know what they arent.

and I just wanna add , I hate freakin' hornworms, I am war with those bastards constantly!! lol
 
I just had to +1 that post on the lady bugs WM. Nice new pic too, need to figure out how to get my hands on some of that stuff.
 
I'm thinking that the ladies in wayright's photo were probably feasting on whatever was in those eggs. At first I thought they were maybe Asian beetles because we have lots of them here in MN and they look alike. But I looked into it and their eggs look the same as lady bugs. They also eat pests just like lady bugs. Asian beetles are considered pests here because they like to infest buildings in large numbers, but they are also good for gardens. Maybe thats why I haven't had any pest problems yet with the plants I'm wintering.
 
Interesting theories of what those bugs might have been. I have yet to find anything exactly like it online myself. I know the Japanese ladybug--and to be honest, I hate the things for the reason mentioned... around fall, they sometimes come indoors for the winter in large numbers. While on the subject of the Tabasco plant, since I have the phone out with a low charge still, I figured I'd snap a picture of it (one thing the phone is decent at--taking pics from a distance).


The right of the image looks blurred , but oh well... it's hard to press a button while keeping the phone 100% still and the tiniest nudge screws it up and it goes by unnoticed until brought up on a big screen...

I'm surprised at how this thing has gone... it started out as a little, strong-looking plant when I bought it at the store, and it eventually eclipsed the Hot Lemon which was twice the size as the Tabasco when I got it (about the same time). And now as you can sort of see from the yard stick behind the plant, it's pretty tall (taller than the stick actually) and is somewhat difficult to safely get through doors (but nowhere near as crazy as my Rocoto Red--that thing's a serious PITA to carry around). I'm surprised it's not looking crappy from the lack of light yet since being inside, honestly... and I've read that plants should be pruned before bring them in, but I honestly can't bring myself to do it (something seems "wrong" about it).

Last year I had a Tabasco plant (a Bonnie plant like this one) and it was in the ground in an area where it received very little light, yet somehow it managed to get much bigger than my other plants of the time too. Tabasco must be a hell of a grower or something. If it survives the winter, it's going to get a bigger pot... it falls over *easily* outside in the wind.
 
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