Ruud Kleinpaste: Identifying the white fluffy pests living in your garden

White fluffy pests – Mealybugs

One of the rottenest pests gardeners can get on their plants are Pseudococcuslongispinus, or any of its close relatives.

Longispinusis derived from the word meaning “with a long spine or tail” – so we’re talking about the Long-Tailed Mealybug.

To identify these insects, you’ll need good eyesight. The way to start your identification is to look for dense, white patches of silkall over your plants, especially over the leaves and on the stems.

If you scrape off the fluffy white deposits, you’ll get to the insects hiding underneath that fluff. Big ones and smaller ones all living together out of the rain and out of the sun. 1-4mm in size.

They eat a massive range of plants, both edibles and

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks, that'd be.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Rude climb pastes our men in the garden road. And
if your place is anything like mine, which I know
it isn't, you will be overrun with melli bugs about
ninety percent of the year. I don't know what it is.
I don't know how we attract them, but once they're there,
they're so hard to get rid of.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Because you don't see them when they start. Check that's
the point. They're tiny, and then they grow bigger in
there they eye. So these are my little white little
rottters that look quite gorgeous and beautifully attached to the
white filaments that they let go everywhere and so on
so forth. But they are sucking bugs. They suck dudes

(00:48):
out of your plants, and that's how you notice that
your plants are getting very debilitated after a while. So
for those of you that we don't know what we're
talking about or don't know what we're talking about, it's
white mealy buggy type stuff. It's like a complete white Okay,
these guys have got all the white stuff all over
their body and also their tails and all that and

(01:11):
that stuff is waterproof, so that if you use a
water based insecticide, it just runs off there like water
off a dutch back. So it's as simple as that.
So that's not the great way to go. If you
know that you have them, and you can see them
of course on nine Naturalist, and you can do whatever.
Mellibugs are quite common. As you said, the best way

(01:31):
to do is to use an oil based insecticide like
Conqueror oil, because they can't deal to that because it
suffocates them. They can't do that. But even better than
that is the Name oil, which is another oil version.
There you go. And honestly, if you do that not

(01:52):
just once, but let's say every week or so, you'll
find you will get on touch on top of them.
And the reason is very simple. You do with every
now and then is because once they've got little eggs
going and little baby's going, they will follow up very quickly.
So you need to have another go a week or
two weeks later, again and again and again.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
So when I do it, because we've got n Eem
oil for it as well, I think I've taken your
advice on that before. If you should be drenching the
plant even in bits that you can't see like you should.
At the underside of the leaves and all that stuff
where it doesn't look like there are any melli bugs,
there will be melli bug eggs.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
I reckon you're probably one of the best listeners to
this show.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
A funny one of one of, though not not necessarily
the best.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
That's I think you're doing well, Jack. You're seeing what
you come up with. I love it. Yeah, it feels
really good.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Finger in the ear and the Three today and christ Church,
how's that we're feeling like we're going to have rain
it all today.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I have no idea what the three is and what
christ Which is and what I'm going to take about tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Goodbye, Okay, very good. Well, Rot will not be watching
the black Caps then, fair enough as they take on
England at Hagley Oval. Game is to start in a
couple of minutes time, day three of the first Test
between England and the black Caps. I'll make sure I
keep you up to speak with how that's going after
eleven o'clock.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks at b from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,