“What is the best way to remove ground mealybug or should I dispose of the whole plant?” Question from Erin of Conover, North Carolina
Answer: Mealybugs can be overcome. It just takes a little time and patience. The main reason is that one has to eradicate both the adults as well as the juvenile crawlers, which are almost invisible to the eye. Outdoors, ladybugs and other natural predators keep populations down, but inside the house mealybugs can take over a plant really quickly.
How To Manage Mealybugs
Here is an excerpt from my blog, Managing the Worst House Plant Pests:
Mealybugs are soft, white, and feed on the juices of plant leaves and stems, particularly in the crevices between leaves and stems. Mealybug infestations are hard to manage because these pests travel and spread as crawlers. Crawlers are the nearly invisible nymphs that hatch from the pest’s white, cottony egg masses and “crawl” several feet to quickly infest other plants. You can’t always see these crawlers, so to manage them, you have to clean plants, containers, and surrounding surfaces when you see an infestation. They produce copious crawlers, so the sooner you notice mealybugs, the better.
To remove mealybugs, start by cleaning your plant, its pot, and all surfaces surrounding the plant. Remove the top two inches of potting soil and replace it with fresh. Finally, spray the plants. One of the best mealybug sprays is a 10-25% solution of isopropyl alcohol. Fill a spray bottle with 1/4 cup of isopropyl alcohol and 2/4 cup water and shake to combine. When treating plants with this solution, keep them out of direct sunlight because it can cause leaf burn in the bright sun. You can also treat plants with insecticidal soap or Neem oil. Repeat spray treatments until plants are mealybug-free.
Another method to stop crawlers is to surround infected areas with double-sided tape traps. As the crawlers hatch and begin crawling, they will get stuck on the tape and die. You can also surround plant bases and pot edges with double-sided tape to keep crawlers from moving beyond an infected plant.
I hope that these tips help!
Happy gardening,
Jessie Keith
Black Gold Horticulturist
