FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello,

I have been noticing that a couple of my Sarracenia have holes, and black marks as if you burned paper with a magnifying glass. I have kept that in mind, and have been looking for aphids anywhere on my plants or in the pot ever since I noticed the issue. Today I was saying good morning to my plants (as I always do), and noticed an aphid on one of my S. "Judith Hindle" pitchers. I took it off and killed it, but I wonder if there are any more aphids that I haven't seen, and there probably is. When I got that Sarr in the mail, it had a little cut in it (either from aphids, or from a delivery accident), and since the pitcher has grown, the cut grew with it (or the aphids kept chewing at it).

I read the thread on the Venus Flytrap Care Questions page and saw how to solve an aphid problem, but wouldn't that be for really bad issues like an infestation? The issue in my opinion is bad enough to be addressed. Would there be any way to prevent more aphids from eating my plants? Whenever I check on my plants or look at them in general, I never see any aphids or harmful bugs. Any tips and help would be greatly appreciated!


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Pictures please? I believe I have the same thing with my nep, though it just alters the leaves, the plant as a whole grows normally. It might be the ants in the case of my nep though. Try filling a bucket with RO and dipping the entire pot into the bucket. Any hidden ants will come out. For aphids, I had some on my drosera, I just got a toothpick and fed the aphids to the drosera Since sarracenia is a "simple" plant, a manual search is not probably too exhausting, unless you have one of those huge clumps. You can also try unpotting and soaking the roots with water, this will force any hidden root buggies to go to areas which they are easily seen.

Frothy_Milk wrote:I have been noticing that a couple of my Sarracenia have holes, and black marks as if you burned paper with a magnifying glass.

Great description! I believe these are normal to see on your pitchers as they age. They probably are caused by a bug doing a taste test and it seems usually they decide they aren't interested. But where there is one aphid, there are usually many more. Can you find more anywhere? I haven't seen them on sarrs, but new growth (of any plant) seems to be their favorite. You can start by turning your plant sideways or upside down and spraying off as many as you can with water. This can be surprisingly effective. Then treat with pretty much any CP-safe insecticide. I'd recommend pyrethrins which is totally effective on aphids but less harmful to beneficial critters and the environment. It degrades in sunlight so apply it once a day for a few days to make sure you kill off the next generation.

As far as aphid prevention goes, a periodic application of neem oil should keep them away as well as a number of other potential pest and fungal problems.

Use neem


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xr280xr wrote:

Frothy_Milk wrote:I have been noticing that a couple of my Sarracenia have holes, and black marks as if you burned paper with a magnifying glass.

Great description! I believe these are normal to see on your pitchers as they age. They probably are caused by a bug doing a taste test and it seems usually they decide they aren't interested. But where there is one aphid, there are usually many more. Can you find more anywhere? I haven't seen them on sarrs, but new growth (of any plant) seems to be their favorite. You can start by turning your plant sideways or upside down and spraying off as many as you can with water. This can be surprisingly effective. Then treat with pretty much any CP-safe insecticide. I'd recommend pyrethrins which is totally effective on aphids but less harmful to beneficial critters and the environment. It degrades in sunlight so apply it once a day for a few days to make sure you kill off the next generation.

As far as aphid prevention goes, a periodic application of neem oil should keep them away as well as a number of other potential pest and fungal problems.

Thanks for the help! I will look into that neem oil, because the aphid damage isn't huge, and I doubt that there is a lot of them.


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I haven't grown anything carnivorous outside since we moved, but has anyone taken the natural predator approach to dealing with aphids? I was reading recently about the beneficial bugs that eat the bugs who are destroying our plants. I even recently bought some seed mix to attract beneficial bugs to my garden area but it's to early to know if it will help or not.

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Seed mixes attract bugs that do well on the plants that grow. You may end up with a few more bug-eating insects as a result of them arriving to eat the first bugs, but most bugs attracted to your plants won't eat aphids.

The issue with beneficial insects like ladybugs is that we're talking about plants that eat insects. The aphids can evade the traps because of their size, but ladybugs won't be so lucky.

I've introduced ladybugs to my garden before and, while I know their larvae are eating pests, they didn't make much of a dent in the pest population. But like fishkeeper said, they won't do much good if introduced on plants that will eat them first.

The other problem with predatory insects is that predators who wipe out their prey populations starve to death. Unless you introduce a massive amount of predators, they'll never eat enough to exterminate the aphids, just keep the numbers from spiraling out of control.

I use Bayers 3 in 1 systemic pesticide. It supposed to also work as a systemic fungicide but I haven't found the to be effective at all at this. It will kill bees that drink nectar from your plants, being a systemic, however, any bees that encounter my plants die anyways. I am not always there to save them from the Sarr pitchers, and they fly right back in anyways.

Benurmanii wrote: It will kill bees that drink nectar from your plants, being a systemic, however, any bees that encounter my plants die anyways..

That's why I strongly prefer & recommend Bayer Natria (or equivalent) as a first step. Bees are in decline from all our (the world's) chemical usage but we need them! I also suspect, from observation, that this includes inactive ingredients that serve as a foliar fertilizer that VFTs like.