CactiGuide.com

Thanks for sharing
However...i'll be too affraid to test this to my own plants...
Hahaha

"insecticidal soap"...?! interesting, never heard about that.
N.

I wonder if the hot water bath would have any effect on armored scale.

samhain wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 7:20 pm I wonder if the hot water bath would have any effect on armored scale.

I believe yes.

Edwindwianto wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 12:16 pm Thanks for sharing
However...i'll be too affraid to test this to my own plants...
Hahaha

Don't worry. I tested it already with my cacti. Just have a thermometer handy and check that it doesn't get too hot.

I am slightly confused about the suggested procedure. Do you submerge the entire plant (body and roots) or only the roots in hot water?

I submerged entire plants agains armored scale.

samhain wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 5:14 am I submerged entire plants agains armored scale.

Thanks

Hi
Great experiment.. love this..
Did you tried hot bath with Trichocereus pachanoi?
If so, how many degrees Celsius and for how long ??
Regards from Denmark

Thomasbech wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 2:21 am Hi
Great experiment.. love this..
Did you tried hot bath with Trichocereus pachanoi?
If so, how many degrees Celsius and for how long ??
Regards from Denmark

Hi Thomas. I never tried with Trichos but I tried with several other genera and never had a problem.
I'm pretty confident that you can let it for 3 minutes in 55 degrees Celsius, or 2 minutes in 60 degrees.
Use a thermometer and a chronometer.
After the hot batch, put it in cold water so it will lose temperature quickly and stop "cooking".
Don't do it with seedlings or very young and small plants.

I have used hot baths with neemoil and soap( dishwashing liquid soap) with success against mealies and root mealies. Since I don’t have a thermometer I have just filled a bucket with the hottest water I can get from the tap, mixed with neemoil ( Dyna-Gros) and liquid dish soap according to the recipe on the bottle.

I then wait a bit, so the water isn’t scolding hot and submerse the cactus in the bucket. I make sure to move it around, to get all parts wet and then place it on a newspaper or paper towel. I don’t take the time either but I would guess the whole prosess don’t take more than a minute . I don’t place the cacti in cold water afterwards but let them dry with the solution on.

The cactus lay barerooted on a paper for 14 days, then repeat. Heavily infested plant ( like a Fero I bought with both mealies and root mealies) get three treatments with 14 days apart. The point with waiting 14 days between treatments is to kill possible hatched eggs, that didn’t die .

I now give all newly bought plants one treatment, just in case.. I have only tried this on one succulent, an Euphorbia, who seems to have no ill effects after one treatment.

nachtkrabb wrote: ↑Mon Dec 30, 2019 8:53 am "insecticidal soap"...?! interesting, never heard about that.
N.

Soap has been used for at least 190 years to kill plant pests. Probably a lot longer.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... up&seq=522

You can use almost any type of relatively pure soap or detergent. Lots of cleaning products have other additives that might not be plant-friendly. SB Invigorator uses the detergent SLES (sodium lauryl ether sulfate), the most commonly used in shampoo and many other cleaning products. For mealybugs, the manufacturers of SB Invigorator recommend using it once to get the waxy protection off, then again 24 hours later to drown the now-naked insect.
https://sbpi.co.uk/pest-control/mealybug/

Liquid potassium soap is the easiest of the traditional soaps to use. I bought this liquid Castile soap but luckily have had no need of it, yet.
https://naissance.com/products/castile- ... 5744785485

mmcavall wrote: ↑Tue Oct 16, 2018 2:17 am Results: At 60 C the Hylocereus looked cooked. But about 15 days later it was showing new branches and it is alive until now. The other plants suffered no visible harm in any of the treatments.

I'm getting quite some plants from my local botanical garden. A lot of them were neglected for a long time. Some of them have mealybugs, so I basically subject each plant to the hot bath procedure (followed by a cooling bath). I usually opt for 3-5 minutes in 55°C. The roots of a lot of these plant are also in a bad condition so I soak them in a 1% hydrogen peroxide solution for 30 minutes as a last step. I don't know if that's too much or not. Most cacti don't really seem to suffer from the process. I did recently (2 days ago) apply it to an Agave victoria-reginae and it —to quote you— looks cooked. How do you care for it in that state? Do you treat it like as a repotted succulent? I now have it in a spot with bright indirect light and the room temperature is probably between 15-21°C. Do I withhold watering for 2 weeks? It did suffer from a lot of root loss. Does misting the plant help in any way to a more speedy recovery? It's the first time I'm experiencing this. Thanks in advance!

Hi, good to know someone is trying this method. Please let us know (some weeks after the treatment) if everything went well... and if the mealybugs effectively died.

Yes I think you could treat the "cooked" one as a repoted succulent. The procedure you described seems to be good. I hope the interior of the plant wasn't cooked in the procedure.
Too much water will not help, moreover if the plant has a poor root system. And yes I would mist the plant, since it presumably can absorbe water from the leaves (?). Agave victoria reginae is a very slow growing plant according to my experience, so be patient.

I apply the treatment on all newly acquired succulents or if a succulent has (root) mealies. It seems to work, but —since it's not an insecticide— overall hygiene is important. Sterilizing the soil and regularly cleaning the plant room are also important. It's rather a question of keeping the bad bugs at bay and I think the hot bath method is a good ecological way to do this. I try to use as little chemical insecticides as possible. I did spot a mealybug yesterday on a —I think— a Turbinicarpus. I used 50°C water in this case and think 55°C water for at least 3 minutes is the way to go. I'm now treating it for 3 weeks with a garlic concentrate and after that I will put out beneficial insects.
I will keep an eye on the Agave and will probably mist on warmer, sunnier days.
Thank you for the input.