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Treatment of soil mealy bug

GCTBA
11 years ago

Can anyone help out with the dilution rate of Confidor to treat soil mealy bugs?

Active ingredient is .125g/l Imidacloprid.

I have only ever used this as a foliage spray for above ground mealy bug and I have not used it as a drench.

Thanks,

Andrew

Comments (3)

  • irina_co
    11 years ago

    Andrew - I didn't use drench- used Marathon with 0.1% Imidacloprid as a slow release soil additive.

    I looked at the recommendations for Merit - 21% - and recalculated for Confidor. You need to dilute it 4 times - 1 cup - of C.+ 3 cups of water.

    Anyway - my guess is that the liquid systemic will work shorter time than a time release granules - 3-4 months - so it will be active for a month or so. The problem is that if there some sleeping eggs in a soil - they will wake up after these months - and start reinfecting the pots.

    So - my recommendaton will be to cut the crowns off and reroot them in a new soil with some of the Confidor solution added. Work in the gloves. Make sure that when you cut off your crowns you cut them above the ground and no old soil goes in a new pot.

    Good Luck - you will be busy!

    Irina

  • GCTBA
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Thanks Irina especially for the suggested dilution rate. I found the problem in 3 plants only which were instantly tossed out pots and all.
    Adive from others is to treat all my remaining plants with this pesticide. I use individual reservoirs so if I do treat the remaining stock should I simply empty the existing water and substitute the Confidor mix?
    And then when the Confidor mix has all been sucked up simply go back to my water+nutrient mix?

    Or should I not bother with treating the remaining plants?

    There is no sign of any repeat outbreak in the others - the 3 I threw out had been dormant for several weeks. All others are producing good new growth in their centres and there is no sign of the little white floaties in the water reservoirs.

    Andrew

  • irina_co
    11 years ago

    Andrew

    - you are probably OK, but be vigilant for the next year. Sleeping eggs can survive and these darn things crawl.

    I would probably let your plants dry a bit, not dry-dry, but to a barely humid soil- get them off the reservoirs and water them thoroughly with the solution with a watering can with a long spout until a solution is running through into the sink.

    You see the floating monsters and depressed plant when you have a massive infestation. If there are just several of them, they do not show themselves.

    If you pop your plants out of the pots - and look at the soil under a fluorescent light - SMB will shine blueish - and you can see them even if you have perlite in your soil - the perlite will be yellowish. If everything is OK, you can rethread or replace a wick - and stick the plants back into the pots. You can check the plants that were sitting near the affected ones just in case.

    Good Luck

    irina

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