FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Today I found a mealybug on one of my cephalotus pitchers. Not knowing what it was I removed it and fed it to one of my drosera. After researching it some more it appears to be a pretty serious bug. Should I spray my plant with anything? Any help would be appreciated.

In the past, when I had a minor mealybug problem, I just killed them individually with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol.

I had a similar scale problem with my Cephalotus. It kept getting scale, it was very had to manage as my Ceph in the 3 years I had the plant had grown tremendously and become very dense. They are sneaky little bug'gers, they would hide right deep in the stem joints and behind the small pitchers where the tendril connects. I treated with Neem and washed off many with a little scrub brush. That helped but months later it got infected again and was deteriorating fast. So I repotted and made loads of divisions, carefully washing any scale I could find. I think my plant was just in desperate need of a re-pot and that was affecting the health of the plant and its ability to fight off pests. It's growing very well now in its new coco pith based cp mix.

Thanks for the help so far. I will try the alcohol method that Panman recommended seeing as the problem is only on one pitcher.

The rubbing alcohol did not work and the bugs have spread. Any recommendations for what to spray the plant with? Should I use something imidacloprid based?

I'd suggest try using neem oil with water and spraying it weekly, until the bug are gone. also i suggest to maybe put some alcohol into the neem oil solution. i think imidacloprid could be useful but not sure what the effects are on the plant

uxleumas wrote: ↑Sun Jun 07, 2020 4:06 pm I'd suggest try using neem oil with water and spraying it weekly, until the bug are gone. also i suggest to maybe put some alcohol into the neem oil solution. i think imidacloprid could be useful but not sure what the effects are on sarracenia

I thought neem oil was used to help prevent pests. I'm also going repot it because of the bugs and so the plant has more space to grow. Just a little side note, this is for a cephalotus not a sarracenia.