Orchid Troubleshooter

Scale is probably the most important insect pest of cultivated orchids in northern climates. According to a Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services publication, there are at least 27 species of scale identified from cultivated orchids.

Mealybugs are sucking insects that attach to the soft, green, usually newer growths of a plant. They tend to congregate and hide at junctions where there are crevices to hide in.

There are many species of mites – some good, some bad. The good mites are predatory and feed on other mites and other plant pests.

Thrips are probably the worst, most destructive pest, outdoors or indoors. They feed by slashing plant tissues and drinking the cellular pulp.

Slugs and snails are different form other pests in that they are land mollusks, which are not insects or worms, but rather more closely related to octopi and squid than anything else.

Orchid growers are reputed to pamper their plants excessively. However, over-watering and over-fertilizing are two symptoms of a "mothering" of plants that can be deadly.

Among the most common orchid pests, aphids are slow-moving, soft-bodied insects related to scale. Usually less than 1/8-inch long, greenish white or black, aphids have soft, pear-shaped bodies, long legs, antennae, and sucking mouthparts to feed on plant juices.

Ants by themselves are no harm to plants and in nature there are many examples of symbiotic relationships between ants and plants. In orchids, many biting ant species colonize the roots of orchids or, in the case of Myrmecophila whose pseudobulbs are hollow, use the hollow pseudobulbs to house their colony.

While whiteflies may look and act like flies, they are actually in the same order as scale bugs, mealybugs, and their ilk. That means that like scale and mealybugs, whiteflies have piercing, sucking mouthparts which drain the sap of the plant.

There are more than 3,500 roach species, 57 of them in the United States. The smokey brown (Periplaneta fuliginosa), German (Blattella germanica), American (Periplaneta americana, waterbug or Palmetto bug), Oriental (Blatta orientalis, waterbugs or black beetle), Asian (Blattella asahinai), woods (Cryptocercus punctulatus) and brown-banded (Supella longipalpa) roaches are most common in the United States.

Caterpillars leave the same damage marks as slugs and snails, but without the slime trail, and they are active during the day, rather than at night. They are the immature stages of lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), as well as a few other genera of insects.

One of the largest and slowest moving grasshoppers, lubbers can attain 3 inches (7.5 cm) in length at maturity, and cause a great deal of damage to an orchid collection.