So I have these bunch of plants that I'm paranoid about (as I'm sure you are all aware). I went away for the week and they grew a bunch (my neighbor watched them), but I noticed that the leaves towards the bottom on all of them started crinkling up, drying out, and falling off. They stayed pretty green throughout this process. Additionally, some of the plants have 1-2mm brown spots with distinct edges on their healthy lower leaves (non-crinkled), but the leaves are a perfect verdant green otherwise. This is Houston, and I think I might have kept the soil a little too moist over the past couple weeks (they are in 5 gal pots). This leads me to think that these tiny, stationary black flies are I've found are fungus gnats. They absolutely hate flying (you can just mush them on the plant, they don't even try to move).
I suppose I have two questions. The fungus gnats are obviously responsible for the brown spots on the leaves (I am guessing), even though I only ever see them on the stems of the plant (especially in the croches where suckers grow). There aren't too many, though some of the babies have started clustering around the blossoms on one plant - in short, should I be concerned? Just buy some ladybugs and be done with it?
What's of more concern to me is the withering/shriveling green leaves on the bottom branches. Could it just be that my neighbor carelessly splashed water on them, magnifying the sun's rays and shriveling the leaves? It didn't freeze, but it did get into the mid 30's Saturday evening (and she didn't bring them inside!). Could that cause the lower leaves to shrivel and fall? One or two of the hundreds of blossoms on my plants have shriveled and look like they might fall off, too (cherry tomatoes = lots of blossoms). Could all the shriveling just be a reaction to the cold and overwatering?
Thanks for all your help and sorry for clogging the boards with my paranoia!
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
Pictures would help a lot!
But to start with the stationary black things you are talking about are not fungus gnats. Fungus gnats stay on the soil, not the plant, and when disturbed they do fly away, they don't let you just smoosh them (unfortunately!). You called them tiny black flies. Do they look obviously like little insects or do they look like just little round bumps on the stem? In the first case, probably aphids, in the second case probably scale insects, both of which do just hold still and let you smush them.
Figure out which it is and then type that into the Search the Forum feature and you will find a lot already written here about them. But in either case, good recommendations are probably alcohol spray, soapy water spray (SOAP not detergent) or Neem oil spray. If they are aphids, lady bugs would prey on them; if fungus gnats or scale insects the lady bugs would not bother them.
Otherwise I'm having trouble sorting it all out, maybe they got too cold or maybe they got too hot or maybe they were over watered, seems like a lot has happened to these little plants. All I can suggest is take good care of them, see what happens and post some pictures.
But to start with the stationary black things you are talking about are not fungus gnats. Fungus gnats stay on the soil, not the plant, and when disturbed they do fly away, they don't let you just smoosh them (unfortunately!). You called them tiny black flies. Do they look obviously like little insects or do they look like just little round bumps on the stem? In the first case, probably aphids, in the second case probably scale insects, both of which do just hold still and let you smush them.
Figure out which it is and then type that into the Search the Forum feature and you will find a lot already written here about them. But in either case, good recommendations are probably alcohol spray, soapy water spray (SOAP not detergent) or Neem oil spray. If they are aphids, lady bugs would prey on them; if fungus gnats or scale insects the lady bugs would not bother them.
Otherwise I'm having trouble sorting it all out, maybe they got too cold or maybe they got too hot or maybe they were over watered, seems like a lot has happened to these little plants. All I can suggest is take good care of them, see what happens and post some pictures.