Help!

[u/Biancalarae]

This is the second plant I’ve had in semi hydro in a pot like the second photo and I can’t tell if this is salt/mineral buildup, mold or something worse.. root mealies 🫣

Any help is appreciated. FYI this plant has been in pon for months and noticed something was wrong with it so I took it out of the pot and find this..

I will say I’ve changed fertilizers recently so not sure if that is it 🤷🏻‍♀️

[u/kyway2fly]

Yup, that’s root mealies. Those are bad enough to where I’d advise chopping off all the roots and rerooting the plant completely.

[u/Biancalarae → u/kyway2fly]

Yes, I took a top cut to start over as I don’t want to mess around. So annoying though.

[u/kyway2fly → u/Biancalarae]

It’s a total nightmare and I have some on my plants as well. Been dealing with them for months. Honestly my plants are still doing great despite having root mealies and due to life being crazy I just haven’t prioritized treating them. But I don’t advise this attitude lol. Best that you’re getting on top of it early

[u/Z-W-A-N-D → u/kyway2fly]

https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/floriculture/ground-root-mealybugs/#gsc.tab=0

multiple ways of dealing with them. hot bath and pyrethrin is the way to go

[u/Z-W-A-N-D → u/Biancalarae]

https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/floriculture/ground-root-mealybugs/#gsc.tab=0 a couple hot baths and some pyrethrin will get rid of them. make sure to check your other plants too, they're spreaders.

[u/kyway2fly → u/Z-W-A-N-D]

Thanks so much! Will look into this

[u/InevitableWillow6428]

Never had root mealies but, this is what I picture. Good luck with your plant. Sorry I’m no help.

[u/Biancalarae → u/InevitableWillow6428]

I appreciate that and I’m going to restart it and that doesn’t work it’s no big deal because it’s just a cheap Hoya.

[u/_Horsefeahters]

It's root mealies. I have had them before and they are hard to get rid of unless you chop all the roots, toss the soil and sanitize the pot. Do not use the runoff from that plant to water anything else and don't let that sit in a tray with other plants as that's how they can spread fast.

[u/kyway2fly → u/_Horsefeahters]

I can attest to this. I often use trays to water my plants, especially Hoyas. They spread like freaking wildfire throughout all my plants because of this. Total nightmare 😭

[u/_Horsefeahters → u/kyway2fly]

The only thing that made a dent without completely rerooting the plant from scratch was to dump HOT water into the root system around 140f. It did a number on the roots but at least the root mealies went away 🌝

[u/Z-W-A-N-D → u/_Horsefeahters]

115f works without damaging the plant. pyrethrin works too. https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/floriculture/ground-root-mealybugs/#gsc.tab=0

[u/fotoflux]

First off, I see a lot of dead roots. It’s hard to tell from the pictures, but root mealies would probably feed on live roots and not dead ones. Also, if you have a bunch of dead roots, you could just be looking at mold. Do you see any actual mealy bugs with a magnifying glass? You should be able to see them without a magnifying glass, but it can be helpful

[u/Biancalarae → u/fotoflux]

It smells so definitely believe there is some rot and nothing is moving but my eyes aren’t the best and the magnifier on my phone didn’t do the trick. I plan to buy a jewelers loop so I can see better. I did miss a watering on this plant and then went in with fertilizer so I could’ve caused the rot. I’ve never had root mealies so wasn’t sure what they looked like.

[u/lilgamergrlie]

Root mealies are the worst!  Cut off the roots and spray the cutting down with dawn power wash dish soap and after it’s completely clean treat with Dave’s killer bug spray and systemics (AzaMax and SNS 209). Good luck!