Les

Hi folks...

Have a cutting (now a couple of years old) from the Musa basjoo in the
garden growing indoors on a sunny windowsill.

It is playing host to a pest I've not come across before. It makes the
leaves brown / yellow at the edges and droop, eventually to die.

If you look closely there is a very fine web a little like spider's web
under the leaves, especially in the ribs, and around new shoots that is
inhabited with very, very small white crawly things.

Have tried daily misting with water to no avail...

Any ideas chaps?

Les

jmoore

I have the same thing, it's red spider mite, but the mite isn't red, if that makes any sense. Mine are more beige. I'm gonna give them a good spraying with something fatal later this evening.

Having said that they are building up immunity.

lorax

Insecticidal soap! Spider mites are nasty little boogers. As a preventative, try raising the humidity of your growing area - they thrive in the dry, but the damp seems to deter them.

Les

Red spider mite! Heh... if they'd even been brown i'd have suspected that!

But looking at the symptoms it sounds like you've nailed it.

It's really dry as it's above the vivarium for the lizard and in full sun a lot of the day. The misting i tried obviously wasn't enough!

I'll pop along to the local garden centre and see if they stock the biological control for it or if not then a spray of some kind.

Perhaps even a spell outside might do the trick?

Les

lorax

Maybe - depends on where you are. Where are you, anyway?

Les

S.Kent, UK... on the coast. Have the mother of this plant growing outside, unprotected with no probs.

Although the wind damaged the new leaves this spring.

lorax

Yeah, wind does that no matter where you are. With your high outdoor humidity, it should do fine.

Jack Daw

What do you consider high humidity, lorax? My humidity varies from 46 to 92%. Is that a high humidity?

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lorax

I consider anything above 50% to be reasonable, and anything above 75% to be high.

I have gardens in desert areas (20% humidity at peak) and some in cloud forests (100% humidity normal) The desert gardens have a heck of a time with mites and other dry-thriving pests, and I have to be careful of rot in the cloud forest.

Les

15C and 72% H at 21:00

Les

Have planted it in the soil in the back garden... just had a day of rain on it! Should be much happier.

Will take a few offshoots from it in the Autumn to ensure we don't lose it through the winter.

David Harritz

There are lots of factors that might matters here and will required a check out to be done here. The atmospheric change are just normal to happen as the humidity and temperature and the rain all will come there. So need to take a lots of care there.

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