Plant fungus?

Question

I have a lovely house plant that recently got this fungus..it made all the leaves sticky and there are these little brown stuff (maybe bugs) all on the stem . I bought some insect spray but it's 2 weeks and it's not any better. Any suggesstions?

Answer 1

I agree with "Fluffernut's" assessment in that it is most likely scale insects that are causing the "sooty-mold" to appear on your houseplant. Scale and other sucking insects secrete a "honeydew"-type of liquid that provides a good substrate for the fungi (sooty-mold) to grow on. The "honeydew" is basically the sap that is sucked by the insects (such as scales, aphids, mealybugs and whiteflies) and deposited onto the leaves and stems.

The sooty-mold itself doesn't harm the plant but if it does get out of control, it can cause leaves to drop prematurely.

There are currenlty 2 very good products that you can use to control scale and other sucking insects on ornamental plants; "Safer's Soap" and any product that contains the active ingredient "Imidacloprid".

Safer's Soap must be sprayed on and you'll need thorough coverage of the entire plant. It will also help get rid of the sooty mold with a wipe from a paper towel.

The other alternative is to use "Bayer's Advanced Insect Control" that contains the Imidacloprid. It is mixed with water and applied to the soil where it is taken up by the roots and then translocated up to the leaves to kill most sucking insects (except mites). A single application will provide a year's worth of protection to plants.

I've used it on my outdoor trees and it works quite well. Just be patient and allow 3 or 4 days for it to take effect and begin controlling the insects.

Hope this information helps you solve your problem. GOOD LUCK!

-Certified Professional Crop Consultant with over 30 years of experience and a Degree in Plant Science

Answer 2

Usually the sticky stuff is evidence of insects.I would use the insect spray as often as it is recommended and follow up a couple of times.. Also washing the plant off in a shower can help knock off some insects. My guess is spidermites. Make sure that your insect spray is listing mites. Not all of them do.

Answer 3

Scale. Little suckers that have an armored cover. Problem is most chemicals don't work on them due to the hard outer shell.
http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/entomology/ornamentals/scaleinsects.html

Here's one method to get rid of them:

http://www.ehow.com/how_9355_control-scale-insects.html

Times past we had systemic insecticides we could put into the soil, be taken up by the plant and the sucking insects would die. Problem is most, if not all of these chemicals are off the market.

Answer 4

there have been many classifcation structures taught in faculties over the years. the main present day of which - 5 kingdoms - is now defunct, and has no longer been used by using scientists for years. The equipment now used has 3 domain names - Archea, Eukarya and Prokaryae. flora and fungi belong to the Eukaryae area, defined by using the nucleus and the 16s Ribosomal subunit. micro organism belong to the two the Archeae or the Prokaryae. All archea are micro organism (no longer capital B), yet no longer all micro organism are archae. The e book of which you communicate is quite previous type. It probable dates lower back to a time whilst organisms have been labeled by using metabolism .