D. Venusta Problem; Help quick please!

[Devon]

There is a white-ish mold kind of thing forming on my D. Venusta "alba". I'm pretty sure this is basically what killed my other venusta, and natalensis plants. I tried preventing it this time by keeping the plants out of super high humidity with no air flow and not feeding it large amounts of food so the "drool" doesn't drip onto the bottom of the leaves, but it didn't help much.

ANY suggestions would be great. I really don't want to loose these plants.

Pics:

Thanks,

-Devon

 

[Not a Number]

I can't see the white fuzz in the photos but probably your best bet is to treat your entire collection with a systemic fungicide like Cleary's 3336. That means the plants and medium. Good luck finding it in small quantities or even being able to buy it online or mail order. Canada seems to be as restrictive about environmentally questionable products as California is. At the lowest concentration eight oz makes 100 gallons of the stuff and you probably can't buy any less than 32 oz from a farm supply outlet. Concentration depends on what fungus is being treated.

Sulfur is really only effective against powdery molds and I suspect the same is true of cinnamon. And they are better as a preventative than a cure.

I've never had much luck with Neem oil but it probably depends on the fungus and the Neem oil product.

You can try a Trichoderma based product even though the FAQ on some of them say not to use on plants that are actively infected with another fungus. Again probably a better preventative than cure.

Avoid copper based fungicides which can kill Drosera dead...dead...dead...

 

[Red the Grimm]

How is the air flow? I know dews can lose some appearance when blasted with a breeze- but some of my 'Mikanalo' and schizandra were having a similar problem. after consulting my guru, I got on a fungicide regiment and pushed my light aside a smidgen so the cold/hot flow would be natural, but not excessive. BAM! no problem-o since

 

[CPlantaholic]

Hey Devon,
a link to the full size or nearly full-size original would help a lot.
I'm wondering if that might even be a species of small white mites...
possibly similar to this spider mite picture from http://www.squidoo.com/tetranychus?

How wet do you normally keep the media? I don't see why that would be a problem, but i don't know what else could be causing this since you grow them in virtually the same conditions as me.

 

[kulamauiman]

2 questions. What sort of temps? D. venusta for me has been a cool conditions loving plant. Same with D. natalensis. Question two: some of the white things look similar to the cast off skins of some insects. I have see aphids leaf similar white stuff. May want to look carefully on the undersides of the leaves especially near the petioles. The white stuff i see in the middle pic could also be caused by mealybugs and they could be infesting the plant below the soil level......

 

[Devon]

Thanks for all of the replies! Sorry I have taken a while to reply....

The airflow isn't really much to be honest, it's in a terra with a side door opening that is always a little bit open. And the temps must get pretty warm in there, but I have no actual measurement of temp. Probably around 25 Celsius.

And the media ranges from kinda wet to just a bit moist. it depends when I water the tray.

I forgot to mention that the last time this happened to me it was after I fed the plant, and the "juices" ran down the leaves and into the folds of the plant and such.

For it to be parasites, that is a possibility I guess. But they are just soooo tiny! And they don't really have a particular shape to them.

Anyway, a guy on the Ontario CP society recommended to me the "No-damp" fungicide which he can spare me. I will give that a try, and if nothing happens then perhaps I will cut up the plants and make a bunch of root/leaf cuttings and re-grow the plants.

Thanks again for all of the effort in helping!

 

[gill_za]

Any improvement?