Pests, insects and carnivorous plants FAQ

stevebradford

Moderator
Staff member
These brief descriptions and pictures will hopefully help for identification of some of the common insects you might and probably will encounter growing carnivorous plants.

Aphids common on outdoor or greenhouse grown plants but can become a problem for indoor plants as well. Aphids come in either green or brown, mostly I have only seen the green aphids indoors. Adult aphids are winged and fly around late spring and summer looking for a suitable tender juicy plant to deposit up to ten young offspring on in one go.

Adult with young aphids
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Fungus gnats haven’t been a problem for my plants. I do get them occasionally mostly from recently potted soil that’s still finding its microbial balance and whatever dormant eggs were in there hatch. They live in soil as a little translucent worm chewing on organic material until they are ready to pupate into a winged thin black flying adult.

Adult Fungus gnat
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Mealy bugs are the most dangerous adversary the plants ever faced. They are brilliant, ruthless, and will not hesitate to kill every single one of your plants. They are resistant to poisons and will live on all parts of a plant including below the soil surface amongst the roots.
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Soil mites are not directly harmful to humans or plants. They crawl around and mainly eat decomposing materials.
They can vary in size, usually measuring between 0.2 and 1.5mm, and they have different colors.
However, they also catch & eat other small creatures like springtails.
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Scale is light brown to dark brown and resembles a bump or if you live on the coast a limpet, usually found on the underside of leaves along the midrib or vein. Doesn’t seem picky about what plants it likes to feed on. Juvenile scale will crawl around till they find a suitable spot they like then attach themselves permanently to the leaf with a waxy protective shell covering their sensitive parts while they feed on plant juices. Here in costal BC scale can survive the winter outdoors :mad:
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Springtails, not a pest and beneficial, they eat bacteria, mold and break down decaying material helping to keep things in balance and issues like mold from becoming a problem. They also probably become victims to the carnivorous plants as another benefit. Springtails are under 2mm and come in manny different colours and are most easily identified by their signature springing action when disturbed.
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Thrips also not picky about which plant to attack and although very small, under 2mm they can cause a lot of damage. In fact you might notice the damage before finding the Thrip infestation as they spread plant viruses that cause leaf damage. They come in a variety of colours greenish, yellow, brown and black.
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For treatments you can post questions in this thread or refer to this Neem oil recipe thread which works well for most pests except Mealy bugs.
 
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In my experience, the Neem recipe does work for mealy bugs (maybe double strength Neem as for scale). Of course for scale and mealies, I always wipe with alcohol on swabs to mechanically and chemically kill/remove and cut down on the eggs. The Neem disrupts growth and reproduction.
Remember: mealies hang out in the roots too! Must remove medium and treat roots also.
 
I have scale in one of my tanks.. I'm scared to even touch anything in there, risking touching something else and spreading the buggers. Trying to decide if I just want to trash the entire plant collection in there. I tried 72hrs of DROWNING with only mild success.

Pests suck :( usually, quite literally

Edited.. drowning not drawing
 
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Scale is bad but generally not disastrous. I have even noted scale in a Nep tank after the scale had all died, so it can even be self-limiting. Perhaps the high humidity helped.
I have never knowingly spread a pest by touching although I do wash hands and instruments before going to another (hopefully) uninfected plant.
Here's my suggestion:
-some plants like VFT's and Utrics are not that valuable and very sensitive to pesticides (although @WillyCKH 's systemic doesn't seem toxic). You could throw these out or cut the above soil parts off and let them regrow, being careful to look in crevices in the VFT bulbs for scale. I've never seen scale on Dews but you could try this out, perhaps wide leaved types like adelae would be susceptible. If the scale isn't too bad, you could try mechanically destroying and picking them off, followed by the systemic.
-plants with tougher tissues like Neps (often more valuable too) should respond to the treatment I outlined above.
I definitely wouldn't trash all the plants. I once had an incredible amount of scale on some VFT's and U. longifolia. It just wasn't worth the fuss and I threw them out. Otherwise treat and observe.
 
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It's a pure nepenthes tank that needs some loving..

I'll try to give it some effort and maybe blast it with a systemic. But, I have alot of critters in that room, so I try to keep anything but fertilizers out of the room
 
If they're Nep's, get out the q-tips, soak them in isopropyl alcohol, highest concentration you can find. Then just work away at the scale, rubbing them all off. Soak all leaf crevices too. Use the systemic after this. Keep an eye out for new guys and repeat as needed. If the leaves are tough and thick, you can just paint the alcohol on. If the leaves are thin/new/light green, use as little alcohol as you can to avoid burning. You can even spray with water right after rubbing the scale off. You can save the plants for sure. Neem may be toxic to amphibians and arthropods.
 
I have discovered some thrips in my growing area, I was wondering if anyone has tried using lacewings to help keep the thrip population under control? I have added a lacewing card to the grow area, it's still early to tell whether or not they have made a noticeable difference, though it appears to be helping. I'm keeping a close eye on the thrip population, so I should be able to update as time goes on, tested with one card last week, will be adding more this week as I have multiple levels in my growing area. Thrip larvae can't fly, so the higher levels were a little neglected and unfortunately found an infestation at the top.
 
Against thrips you can buy here predatory mites. Helps against a lot of aphids and mites.
Against scales I use Boron
I use it on a lot of plants which are prone to Aphids and others. Plant membranes getting tougher and bugs do not like this. It even helps a wee bit against slugs.
 
These brief descriptions and pictures will hopefully help for identification of some of the common insects you might and probably will encounter growing carnivorous plants.

I might have to lean on some of you with amazing camera work for pictures as I put this together also appreciate any feedback.

Aphids common on outdoor or greenhouse grown plants but can become a problem for indoor plants as well. Aphids come in either green or brown, mostly I have only seen the green aphids indoors. Adult aphids are winged and fly around late spring and summer looking for a suitable tender juicy plant to deposit up to ten young offspring on in one go.

Adult with young aphids
View attachment 23519
View attachment 23520


Fungus gnats haven’t been a problem for my plants. I do get them occasionally mostly from recently potted soil that’s still finding its microbial balance and whatever dormant eggs were in there hatch. They live in soil as a little translucent worm chewing on organic material until they are ready to pupate into a winged thin black flying adult.

Adult Fungus gnat
View attachment 23512View attachment 23509View attachment 23508

Mealy bugs are the most dangerous adversary the plants ever faced. They are brilliant, ruthless, and will not hesitate to kill every single one of your plants. They are resistant to poisons and will live on all parts of a plant including below the soil surface amongst the roots.
View attachment 23514

Scale is light brown to dark brown and resembles a bump or if you live on the coast a limpet, usually found on the underside of leaves along the midrib or vein. Doesn’t seem picky about what plants it likes to feed on. Juvenile scale will crawl around till they find a suitable spot they like then attach themselves permanently to the leaf with a waxy protective shell covering their sensitive parts while they feed on plant juices. Here in costal BC scale can survive the winter outdoors :mad:
View attachment 23517

Springtails, not a pest and beneficial, they eat bacteria, mold and break down decaying material helping to keep things in balance and issues like mold from becoming a problem. They also probably become victims to the carnivorous plants as another benefit. Springtails are under 2mm and come in manny different colours and are most easily identified by their signature springing action when disturbed.
View attachment 23510

Thrips also not picky about which plant to attack and although very small, under 2mm they can cause a lot of damage. In fact you might notice the damage before finding the Thrip infestation as they spread plant viruses that cause leaf damage. They come in a variety of colours greenish, yellow, brown and black.
View attachment 23516View attachment 23518

For treatments you can post questions in this thread or refer to this Neem oil recipe thread which works well for most pests except Mealy bugs.
What do to about fungus gnat larvae?
I'm trying a hydrogen peroxide solution as I just discovered a larvae. Any other options?
 
They are benign. Maybe they bother small seedlings?
Well, ick factor 5. I have pulled out two larvae on the new one. I can see that it enjoyed having eaten a couple of adult gnats (carcass still in the traps). But it's a weak looking little thing. I'm going to do a second hydrogen peroxide watering. I'm nervous they may go for the root system.
 
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