Mealy Bugs—A Pest of Warm Weather Crops

Mealy bugs infest a wide range of foliage plants. These soft-bodied insects have piercing-sucking mouth parts.

They have no apparent larval, pupal and adult stages, and the wings don't grow internally.

Female mealy bugs eat plant sap, commonly in roots or cracks.

They hook on to the plant and release a powdery wax substance.

While feeding, they produce a sticky honeydew that coats the foliage of the plant.

This honeydew is a medium that black sooty mold feeds on.

The males are short lived. They don't eat as adults.

They live just long enough to fertilize the females.

They like warmer temperatures and reproduce better under these conditions. Some mealy bug species have 100 to 300 eggs in one sac.

Several species of this pest insect do their most damage below the soil, by eating root hairs and root tissue. These species do their damage before they can be detected.

They're considered to be pests since they feast on plant juices of greenhouse plants, house plants and subtropical trees. They're also a vector for many plant diseases.

The most serious pests are ones that feed on citrus; other species damage sugarcane, grapes, pineapple, coffee trees, ferns, and orchids. They also infect some species of carnivorous plant, such as pitcher plants.

Control

A fungus, Lecanicillium (formerly known as Verticillium lecanii) is a parasite that kills or disables many insects.

Or use the mealybug destroyer, a beneficial insect that lays its eggs in a mealybug egg mass. The larvae hatch and eat their way through the egg mass.

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