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Can anyone help me, I don't know what is going on with my plant but there is some nasty looking black dots and it also seems to have clear orbs

It is a Kava plant that is in a pot in a screen room, so semi outdoor.

Here are some pictures of it














Thank you

I don't know what happened, but I can't see any of your photos. It always helps, especially with pictures, to look at your post in preview first. That should show you what we see...

I can see the photos but it took a while to load on the screen.
The trouble is, none of them are very well focused. The last photo is promising, but I still can't make out exactly what the particles look like.

I do see spherical clear drop like somethings that remind me of oxalate crystals on spinach and okra leaves. I also see tan flat patches that could be scale insects or plant hopper damage, the black specks could be signs of sucking insects, I also see some almond shaped white and black that reminds me of aphids, maybe it's thrips. The holes could have been made by slugs.

All of the black, white, and clear particles could also be splashed up sand.

Could you try to take another photo that is very clear and focused?

Thank you everyone for your reply and help with this.

The photos were done with my phone. Its hard to get a close up of the spots but I have tried again with the digital camera.

To me it looks like there are 3 different things going on here, there are clear orbs, brown spots and black spots
Pleas let me know what you think. But I know little about plant issues.



















Hard to hold the plant and take a clear pic at the same time, if these are not good enough I will get someone to help me take some more.

Thanks again

The holes look like snail damage and the dots look like small aphids, both are common pests of kawa. The snails or slugs you have to catch. Sometimes they like to hide out in the bottom of the pot around the drain holes. If they are not around the immediate area I would take the plant out of the pot and check to see if they are in the roots.

The aphids can be taken care of with either neem, insecticidal soap or alcohol. If you can improve air circulation it would help.

Thank you for your reply!

Will these things kill my plant? If so is a quick kill or a slow death? Just wondering how fast I have to get this taken care of

The snails and slugs will keep making holes in the leaves and they can chew up quite a bit. Aphids suck plant juices but they do multiply. Some aphids do carry disease but I haven't heard of any bad ones on Kava. It is better to treat them before they spread especially if there are other plants around.

I sprayed the plan with the Neem oil and it seemed to burn the plan or something, also a lot of leaves fell off. Can you take a look at the pics and let me know what to do next or what I might of done wrong?

Its getting pretty bad and I don't know what to do. All of the major leaves have fallen off but one, and its not looking so well.

It seemed like the neem oil suffocated it or something

I've never had a problem with neem oil burning leaves. How did you mix it?

Neem usually does not hurt plants if it is mixed properly and you don't use it on a hot day.

Aphids can be a problem if they transmit CMV. Kava has very little disease resistance.

Some of the holes may have been from shot hole fungus phoma. Neem is also a fungicide, but works best before infection starts. Phoma, not the neem may have been responsible for the leaves dropping. Fungicides don't work well once an infection has set in. If the holes were from phoma it would have been a late sign of the infection and hard to control by then. Neem should have been able to take care of the aphids.

This is a publication from Hawaii that has a lot of pictures and explains a lot of the problems with growing awa. It might help to narrow down the problem.

https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/PD-28.pdf

Thank you for your replies!
I must of mixed it wrong, I just added some to a squirt bottle maybe like around a 1 to 1 ratio maybe a bit more water then oil.

The pot might be to small for this plant. Would this happen if the pot was to small?

Wow... 1:1 no wonder it burned. The Neem oil website suggests 1 teaspoon to a quart of water (or 5 ml to a liter, if you are in metric system). That would be 4 tsps ( a little more than 1 tablespoon ) to a gallon of water if you are making larger quantities.

No, too small a pot could cause stunting, failure to thrive, wilting if the plant uses up the little bit of water and nutrients in the soil too fast, but should not cause the symptoms you describe,

Usually I only have a tablespoon in a gallon or a teaspoon in a spray bottle.

Neem would not have worked on phoma, it would have needed sulfur. The neem was to take care of the aphids.

Geez I screwed that up! Thanks for the input. Is there anyway to reverse the damage I have done? I have been spraying the leaves with water...

Spraying the leaves now probably won't help since they are already burned. I would stop doing that since it would probably just encourage more fungal problems.

At this point, I would just improve the air ciculation but keep the plant out of direct sunlight. Here is is an under story plant anyway and does not like to be in more than morning sun. Watch the watering, don't over do it. If the stem remains firm the leaves may grow back. It may take a while since kava is a slow growing plant under the best of conditions. When we whack it back it takes a long time to grow back.