3 replies to this topic

[jimscott]

I have a few pots with gray bugs. They leave a trail of white flakes and my sundews die. I'm not sure what I have.

[MalcolmP]

jimscott, on 05 July 2012 - 19:22 PM, said:

I have a few pots with gray bugs. They leave a trail of white flakes and my sundews die. I'm not sure what I have.

Pill bugs are much larger than mealie bugs (without going and getting one I guess about 1cm) and when you pick them up they curl up into a wee ball. - hence pill and were once upon a time ingested in fakery medicine.
Also known as woodlouse ( and hundreds of other regional names** eg. sowbug etc.)  commonly found under rotting wood but not the cause of the wood rotting.

Mealie are much smaller (1mm ?) and not often seen under their cocoon of white fluffy debris unless you go loking fr them.
Can be disposed of by dabbing with methylated spirit* on an artists brush when you find them on cactus, but I am a newbie to CPs so take further advise on that. In fact I was not even aware that they were a prob on CPs, wouldav thort it too damp for them ??

a trail of white flakes does not sound to me like the white fluffy cocoon type stuff normally left by mealies, so I dunno what you have, unless the white fluffy stuff is only left in the dry of cactus and they leave a different deposit in the wet condx of CPs ??

* ah! I see you are in NY, , methylated spirit = denatured methyl alcohol aka wood alcohol/spirit, but I guess that rubbing alcohol or isopropyl alcohol would do just as well, in cactus at least !

** Oh! I just googled and thence to wikip. where they give "slater" in Scotland, which reminds me of my youth in Cumberland NW England where we called them "slatiebacks", not listed in wikip ! Gosh, that takes me back,, you didnt need to know that :) !

Edited by MalcolmP, 05 July 2012 - 20:57 PM.

[jimscott]

We have ISO at the lab in which I work. I'll have to capture one.

[jimscott]