My thoughts

The following are my thoughts and understandings of different subjects concerning African Violets.  Over the years I have gained alot of knowledge and this is my way of sharing my knowledge with you.  I don't pretend to know everything there is to know but the following may help you understand and learn new things especially if you are new to violets.

(Pritchard Mealy Bugs) (Rhizoecus pritchard)

These little critters are one of the pests that is the most difficult to get rid of.  They are very tiny pure white insects that live in the soil  The adults mesure about 1/16".  They ressemble a tiny grain of rice and can be easily mistaken for perlite.  If you see some perlite moving around, it is not perlite (lol), it is a mealy bug.

My beliefs of where they come from is from the soil that we use.  I think that there are sometimes some eggs in the soil that hatch once we start using it.  They are also introduced of course with new plants that are purchased and added to the collection.

The damage that they do is eat the roots of the african violets.  They start with the small feeder roots resulting with the plant not being able to absorb its water.  The plant slowly does limp and eventually dies.  They spread by crawling out of the bottom of the pots and crawl to the next plant and populate.

What people hate most about these bugs is that they can be around for a long time without them knowing about it and then suddenly, the whole collection starts to wilt.

I personnaly have had soil mealy bugs in the past and have succesfully gotten rid of them.  I was very patient and worked hard but it is possible.  I never thru out a plant because of mealies. 

How to save a plant:

The easiest way to save your plant is to cut off the crown of the plant and reroot it.  Keep in mind that the mealies like to crawl up in the lower part of the plant and lay some eggs in the junction of the stems and kneck of the plant.  They will do this only in the lower part of the plant so if you cut higher, you should be in the clear.  Once you have cut off the crown, just take a few of the bottom leaves off and reroot your crown.  Normally, this should work.  Just in case, you should keep this plant isolated and check the new rootball once and a while to make sure that there were no survivors.

There are also chemicals that work fine with soil mealies.  I think the most effective is Marathon.  If you are to use the Marathon on high infestations, they suggest you repot all of your plants so I suggest that if you are to repot all of your plants, you might as well crown them and start over without the chemicals.

How to not get soil mealy bugs?  Simply isolate all new plants for one and secondly, pasterize your new soils before using.

Some people go absolutely crazy when they see a thrip on one of their plants.  Please don't go overboard, yes they are hard to get rid of but there are ways to do it.  Thrips are everywhere in our environment.  They are outside and often hitch a ride inside on our shoes, pants etc.  They also can hop in thru your window screens and of course are introduced with new plants.

Thrips are tiny insects which measure about 1/50 inch. They feed on the flowers and leaves of African Violets.

If you see some yellow powder on some of your blossoms, there is a good chance that you have thrips.  Normally, if you blow lightly on the flower to make it move, the thrips will scoot out of the pollen sacs and run for cover.

If left untreated, they will colonize and will cause severe damage in the long run.  These little critters also can carry viruses that are deadly to african violets.

Most people will recommend that you disbud your plants for several weeks and by doing this, the thrips will starve and die.  Well, I am not most people and don't believe this because of the fact that if they don't have any pollen to eat, they will simply go down a few stories and feed on your leaves.

My suggestions

I do suggest that you do disbud all of your plants and by doing this, you will be getting rid of one of the generations of your thrips.  Don't simply throw the blooms in your garbage, take the garbage bag outside or burn it, you don't want them jumping out as they can travel a good distance. 

Once disbudded, I recommend two different things:  Neem Oil OR Raid

Neem Oil: This a product that you can spray your plants with.  Apparently, it tastes so bad to the insects that they will rather starve to death than bite into neem oil.  This product is non toxic to us humans and smells sort of lemony.  This product is also said to be systemic so should be in your plants to protect them for a while.  You will want to spray regularly to get rid of all of the thrip generations.  Don't forget that when you disbudded, you got rid of one generation but there were other cycles of thrips in the soil and other places that you couldn't see.

 Raid:  It is important that you purchase the BLUE can of Raid and not the other colours.  I recommend this if your plants are in a room that you can close the door after misting.  What I do is Spray OVER the plants and NOT ON the plants, the cloud of Raid slowly goes down onto the plants, once done spraying, I close the door.  What I think happens is that the odor is so strong, it kills the thrips even if they didn't recieve it directly on them.  By closing the door, I am trapping the fumes in the room.  I believe this to be very effective having done it myself.  I haven't seen one thrip in over six months now and I check my plants and blossoms every single day.

Both the Neem Oil and Raid will leave some damage to your blossoms but don't worry, your plants will produce new blossoms soon enough.

There are also many other toxic chemicals that exist and are effective for thrips but I don't use any so I will leave that subjust to others with more knowledge.

These little fellows are a very common pest of African violets and all other plants I may add.  The reason they are so common is that they have a cycle where they have wings and can fly to where they want to go. (grrr!)

If you notice some white cottony stuff on your plants, you probably have foliar mealy bugs. 

These little critters feed on your plants by sucking the juices out of your plants.  The plants slowly start to wilt and look bad and eventually will die.  Another danger of mealy bugs is that they can carry deadly diseased and give them to your violets.

My suggestions

Many years ago, I used to have over 200 cactus and maybe 20 violets.  One day, I brought home a mealy infested cactus and didn't know they were mealies because alot of cactus have cottony white hairs so I didn't see the difference (live and learn).  Well needless to say that soon enough, they were everywhere and yes, even in the violets. 

I did the alcohol trick, that is you use a Q-tip with alcohol and touch the mealies with it and they die instantly.  Well after a while I got tired of doing this so the 200 cactus went in the garbage (boohoo) and I kept the violets.  Not knowing whick violets were infected or not, I decided to isolate every plant in a different plastic bag.  I thought after a few weeks, I would open the bags and see whick ones had mealies.  Well to my surprise, after 1-2 months in the bags, there were no mealies at all.  What I think happen is the high humidity and lack of oxygen made the mealies die.

Hey its worth a try!

Rooting powder

Cyclamen mites

General care for African Violets

Growing babies, the do's and the don'ts

Etc....