How to Identify Orchid Pests and Diseases and Control Measures
The symptoms of physiological diseases in orchids often manifest as discoloration of the plant body, such as: yellowing and shedding of leaves, scorched leaf tips or leaf margins, root rot, and so on.
Orchid parasitic diseases, bacterial diseases, viral diseases, and parasitic pests. Their common symptoms are respectively:
1. Fungal diseases: The common symptoms are leaf discoloration, rot, and tissue necrosis (lesions, ulcers, damping-off, rot and collapse). Shrinking, deformity, galls, and so on.
2. Bacterial diseases: The symptoms are water-soaked spots on the leaf surface, rotting spots, an off-odor, scorching, wilting, and acute localized necrosis. 3. Viral diseases: The symptoms are mainly irregular yellow patches on the leaf surface, also known as mosaic disease. Necrosis of the mesophyll tissue causes localized sunken areas. Affected plants become deformed, clustered, and stunted.
4. Parasitic pests: scale insects, mites, nematodes, etc. Scale insects cause yellow spots to appear on orchid leaves. These parasites are all visible to the naked eye, so you should observe and check regularly in normal times, and not wait until they become a disaster before controlling them.
In addition to parasitic diseases, there are also traumatic pests. The obvious characteristic of traumatic pests is damage to the plant body. For example, ants damage roots, and mice and cats urinating in orchid pots are a major harm that can kill orchids. Snails, mole crickets, and so on can all cause scars on orchid leaf surfaces.
Orchids basically have no pests or diseases in their native habitats. After artificial cultivation, there are many diseases and pests. The root cause is an unsuitable ecological environment, improper cultivation measures, and poor management methods.
The most fundamental way to prevent and control orchid pests and diseases is to raise the level of cultivation and management techniques. And adhere to the basic principles of orchid pest and disease control: give priority to prevention, use integrated control, grasp the patterns of disease occurrence, identify the nature of the disease, seize the most effective period for control, and treat the disease with the right remedy.