Eggs on my okra plant

gogreendiwa · Wed Sep 30, 2015 2:04 am

Today I noticed that every okra seedling was thickly covered in tiny gel-like clear spheres. They look like eggs, but I haven't seen any insects. The strange thing is that it's only the okra seedlings - and ALL of the okra seedlings - that have the "egg-like" objects.

They are on the under side of each leaf. Here's a link with a picture. Please help me to understand as to what these are and has anybody else seen such things?

rainbowgardener · Wed Sep 30, 2015 8:23 am

First, I have to say, what a great picture! When I click to enlarge and then click to enlarge again, it pops up an incredibly sharp picture of all the little globes and every hair on the buds and stems. Looks like through a magnifying glass. Is it just a phone picture? How did you do that?

Turns out that is normal for okra:

https://myfolia.com/journals/87686-okra ... gs-but-sap

I saw other discussions of this as well. It seems to be a common thing that okra does, so not too worry. Not insects! I thought maybe it was just water collecting due to all those hairs, but the blog posts, etc. described them as "hard," so I guess it really is some kind of sap the okra (and roselle, which is related) gives off.

applestar · Wed Sep 30, 2015 9:24 am

I remembered posting somthing about this -- it was in May, 2012

applestar wrote:Okra seedlings do that when I start them under the lights. They are definitely not eggs, but I'm still not sure if the okra do that on their own or if ants nip the veins to cause this. Even though they are inside, ants Somehow find their way in and I always see the ants going up and down the okra when I see the hard beads under their leaves.

It doesn't seem to do any harm to the okra, but my problem is the ants also seem to bring aphids to pasture on my peppers.

If the beads are sap exuded by okra naturally, maybe ants are just there to collect some before they harden.

pepperhead212 · Wed Sep 30, 2015 9:54 am

I had ants on my okra every time I looked at them this season! This would explain why. I have never had any insect problem with okra where I am.

gogreendiwa · Wed Sep 30, 2015 10:28 am

rainbowgardener wrote:First, I have to say, what a great picture! When I click to enlarge and then click to enlarge again, it pops up an incredibly sharp picture of all the little globes and every hair on the buds and stems. Looks like through a magnifying glass. Is it just a phone picture? How did you do that?

Turns out that is normal for okra:

https://myfolia.com/journals/87686-okra ... gs-but-sap

I saw other discussions of this as well. It seems to be a common thing that okra does, so not too worry. Not insects! I thought maybe it was just water collecting due to all those hairs, but the blog posts, etc. described them as "hard," so I guess it really is some kind of sap the okra (and roselle, which is related) gives off.

Thanks a lot rainbowgardner. The picture is taken from my mobile device Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

I was quite skeptical these water like droplets since past one week. Simple understanding, if they were water droplets then should vaporize during mid afternoon/afternoon, but they did not.

So in curiosity I removed couple from the leaves and was surprised with their latex like texture, they were slightly hard and adding more pressure broke their shell and water like material came out.

Before reading all the comments I thought them as eggs of some insects. As others say something related to ants.

However, much relieved now as they are not eggs and will not cause the plant any harm.

Though I have heard that using a natural/herbal insecticide like "Neem" oil (https://www.google.co.in/search?q=neem& ... 6OCh0egQo7) really helps insects keep away from any plant.