I have a couple of large unbloomed seedlings I picked up while in Tampa last
November. I noticed some brown sunking areas on the under side of the leaves
and in the leaf axil. At first I thought it might have been from shipping or
potting damage but now I'm not sure. I've examined the plants with a small
magnifying glass but could not detect any mites. The sunken areas resemble
mosiac virus markings and have been detected on the new growth of the most
heavily affected plant.

Any ideas? Treatment? If the damage is from mites I used to be able to get
Kelthane but I don't think it's available anymore and I'm not sure how well
Malithion will work.

nospamX (TRAINMAN9) wrote in message ...


Any ideas? Treatment? If the damage is from mites I used to be able to get
Kelthane but I don't think it's available anymore and I'm not sure how well
Malithion will work.

Don't know what to tell you. I've had this on a handful of paphs (out
of a couple of dozen plants) -- the only serious pest problem I've had
in the past year has been mites, and I've been kind of leaning toward
that as a possible cause, or at least an indirect cause. After
mulling it over and observing them for a while (without doing anything
other than using oil spray) I'm inclined to think it's some kind of
fungal infection that set in after the mites cause their damage. In
the case of repotting, even minimal physical damage from that may have
given something an entry point.

If it is mites, the Malathion probably won't do much, if anything.
Kelthane is still available in some places (NY among others), but I
hear that the mites that aren't resistant already quickly develop
resistance to it. I tried like a fiend to find Pentac about 3-4
months ago, but it seems to have been pulled several years ago and is
completely gone from the market at this point. If you have a big
enough area to treat, it might be worth spending the $$ on Avid, or
one of the other "new" (and way expensive) miticides. They're not too
expensive on a per use basis, but very expensive per container.

Of course, if you're going to spend that kind of money, it probably
makes sense to walk around with a few sheets of white paper and a
magnifying glass to figure out whether it's really they that are
causing the problem. If you live in a state with an extension service
that doesn't go out of its way to make itself difficult to get in
touch with, you might send a leaf or three to them to see if they can
identify any disease(s).

MG