Mealybugs on Christmas cactus and epiphyllum? One trick to eliminate them for good

How do you treat mealybugs on epiphyllum and Christmas cactus? Epiphyllum and Christmas cactus kept indoors without ventilation often attract scale insects. The most common scale insect infesting cactus-family plants is a type of armored scale; this scale insect attaches to the outside of the leaves of Christmas cactus, epiphyllum and the like and stays still. But it reproduces and spreads very fast, and before long the whole leaf will be covered with them.

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If we find this kind of scale insect, how should we go about controlling it? This scale insect has a waxy shell, and ordinary pesticides find it hard to kill, so of course if you have time you can pick them off one by one with a toothpick. When picking them off, be careful not to let them fall into the potting soil, where they can easily reproduce and spread, or we can also dip a cotton swab in alcohol and wipe them off one by one, which also works. This way is somewhat laborious, and it is also not thorough. It is easy to leave some that slip through the net, and they will quickly reproduce and cover the whole leaf again.

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The most reliable method is to use pesticide on them. For the pesticide, we choose Nongguo's Jiebizhi, mix it with water and add a little rice vinegar. After stirring it thoroughly and evenly, just spray it directly on the parts of the leaves with scale insects. Because scale insects have a waxy shell, ordinary pesticides find it hard to penetrate, so adding a little rice vinegar can soften their waxy shell and let the pesticide penetrate completely and kill them. Generally after one spraying most of them will die. To be on the safe side, we can spray them two to three times. The interval between treatments is about seven days, and basically after three sprayings no more scale insects will appear.

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