Different Orchid Pests and How to Control Them

Different Orchid Pests and How to Control Them

Orchids are beautiful plants that have even more beautiful flowers. Orchids are commonly found in tropical and sub tropical areas of the world, although there are also some exceptions to this. Most orchids have aerial roots and are attached to tree trunks in their natural habitat.

Kinds of Orchid Pests

The more common orchid pests are aphids, mealybugs, scale insects, mites, millipedes and centipedes, slugs and snail and whiteflies. These orchid pests would depend on the area and climate of the plants.

Aphids basically suck off the phloem fluids from the plants. The actual damage that these orchid pests do is their biting into the plant itself. The dead tissue soon grows yellow and decays. Mealybugs are those white or pink bugs that infest orchids and feeding on them. These are some of the more difficult orchid pests to control and immediate attention is need when these are discovered.

Scale insects are white insects that look like scales and often infest an orchid. They eventually develop in to a larger, harder scale while they fed off the orchid. The males of these orchid pests are winged insects that potentially breed with the scaly females. The most common mites are the spider mites which are minuscule mites that form webbing on the plants and may baffle you because you never see the spiders.

Millipedes and centipedes eat the rots of the plants they infest. They are quite harmful to orchids and centipedes are potentially dangerous because they can sting humans. Slugs and snails are very similar in their destruction of orchids by eating them and they are common orchid pests. Whiteflies rank as one of the three peskiest orchid pests along with aphids and spider mites.

Getting Rid of Orchid Pests

There are many natural ways to control orchid pests. One of the most inspired ways is to get a natural enemy of the pest and release it on the infected plant. You do not have to use insecticides for this and you are also helping Mother Nature remain pure and clean. If you really have too many pests to hand pick or you can not avail of the natural enemies of your pests, you might as well use insecticide on your plants.

Make sure you get the pesticide that has the most natural and environmental friendly approach because you want to help preserve the world for the future. Barriers and nettings may also work if you wish to try the natural way of preventing orchid pests from getting to your plants.