How to prevent pests and diseases on indoor plants

How to prevent pests and disease on indoor plants

The various plant diseases and pests can be prevented by taking proper care of the plant, keeping the plant at a good place where it receives mild sunlight for 3-4 hours and by creating a good watering schedule. If the plant is infected by any pests or fungus, then first find out about the pest or fungus, which methods can help cure it and then take the following actions in this article.

• reasons for bug and disease growth on plants
• How to cure a pest/fungus infected plant

Reasons for bug and disease growth on plants :

1. Improper care
2. Positioning
3. Watering and creating perfect habitats
   
4. Other effects

Improper care : Bugs and various plant diseases are very common to see in a garden or your indoor plants. There are many reasons why your plant may attract certain diseases and bugs, but the major and the foremost reason is improper care of the plant. Yes improper care of the plant can affect the plant as it may be infected with bugs and you don't realize it until your plant is already dying. This is the worse case that can ever happen.

                    If you don't give goes enough care to your indoor plants, then there is a high chance that you will be unnoticed about any pest growth or fungal growth on the plant. Also another side-effect is that improper care will further promote the growth of other pests as well. A plant with not proper care will be more prone to attracting fungal diseases as well.

                   The only way to fix this up is to start looking after your plants. If you have already done this and there are pests and fungal diseases on your plants then read the prevention tab further in this post to know how to get rid of them.

Positioning : Deciding upon the place where you keep your plant is very important. The amount of sunlight, wind and birds destroying the plants; all these factors must be kept in the mind when you decide where to keep your indoor plant. Though the sunlight requirements differ from each plant to another, an ideal place is where your indoor plant can receive 3-4 hours of mild sunlight.

                    The positioning or the place where you keep your indoor plant can pretty much affect the growth f the plant as well of pests and fungus on it. If you keep your indoor plants in a dry and damp place which is not ideal for a plant specie like the one you have, then immediately change this habit. A dry and damp place is a very good situation for growth of fungus in your indoor plants.

                    Similarly, a place which is very open is not a very good choice. Well your plant may get good amount of sunlight and will not be dry in a quite open space, but it becomes more vulnerable to small pests like whiteflies and also to other birds like the common sparrow. Even ants are a big fear in such a case.

                    A place which is not very dry and damp neither too open to the surroundings is the best place to keep your indoor plants. This way you will minimize the fear of any pest attacks or your plant dying because of fungus growth and lack of sunlight. I have myself observed this in many of my starting plants which died because of poor placement where they were prone to pests and birds.

Watering and creating a perfect habitat : Watering is another major reason for growth of pests in indoor plants. Over watering or under watering your plants can both cause harm to your plant and in some cases make the soil and the other components of the plant too dry or too wet, of which both the conditions are ideal for fungus growth in a indoor plant.

                    In other circumstances, your plant may get too harmed because of over or under watering over a large period of time, that it will not be able to protect itself from any kinds of pests. In most of the cases, if a plant is too heavily affected with pests, then it will start its own protective mechanism. For instance, my holy basil plant heavily infested with whiteflies and I couldn't get rid of them. As the time passed, the plant started to wore off the infected leaves up to the point that the flies were all gone. But in this condition, your plant is already suffering so heavily that it cannot react to any pest or fungus attack and may eventually dye off.

                    Another watering habit which may lead you and your plant into trouble is stagnant water. Yes almost most of us keep a dish or something in which excess water can be collected. But it is equally important to get rid of that water regularly. If you don't do so, then there is a possibility that it may promote mosquito growth and ant raids which are both bad for you as well for your indoor plant.

Other causes : Pest and fungus growth can also be a side effect of a action. While the possibility of a side effect is pretty low but is important enough to consider. People often think that any organic waste can be directly mixed with their indoor plant's soil and it will act like a fertilizer, but actually it can be a action as a side effect of which you could observe fungus growth in your indoor plant in future.

                    I have myself experienced this when I mixed a banana mixture with my plant soil without thinking and in a week I could see white fungus growth all over the soil. Also many times people buy and use gardening mixtures and other gardening products without checking them thoroughly and sometimes, there might have been a pest growth on those products and when you use it for your plant, the pests pass on. For instance, according to greenmethods.com this type of casualty is one of the reasons how your plant may get infected with whiteflies.

How to cure a pest/fungus infected plant :

                    Below are some of the ways that you can fix this problem

1. Identification
2. Analysis
3. Remedies

   

Identification : Identifying the pest or thee type of fungus that has infected your plant is the most crucial part of treating your indoor plant. Correctly identifying is very important because there are many pests around the world which infect plants and there are many similarities in these pests. So it makes it very important to first identify the pest on your plant. If not correctly identifies, then you may take wrong actions to kill the pest and will just not work, but there is a chance that using the wrong medication can cause harm to your plant instead

                    In case of a fungus growing in your plant, identification can be a lot more easier. Commonly there are two types of fungus that you may generally observe growing on any indoor plant, name black and white fungus. Generally the Black fungus grows on the leaves of most of the indoor plants. It looks like black spots on the leaflet. While on the other hand, the white fungus grows in soil and you can easily spot it as it starts to form on the soil.

Analysis : Analysis is important before you actually take any action on the pests.  You need to do at least some research as to how you can get rid of the pest or that fungus. Without any analysis and research, you can again take the wrong step by doing the wrong medications which will to more harm to the plant than to the pest itself. The table below decodes the 5 most annoying pests that you can face in your indoor plants, their pictures and a few tips as to how to get rid of them.

S.R	Name of the pest	Picture	About the Pest	Tips to get rid of the pest/fungus
1.	Ants		Make holes in the soil helping in soil aeration but will destroy your plant	1. Add small amount of lemon juice to a litre of water and spray the solution on the plant.
2.	Mealybugs		Mealybugs are many times dependent on ants. They suck the sap from the plant and destroy it	1.Use Neem oil to eradicate them
3.	Whiteflies		It will also suck sap from the leaves and eventually destroy the plant	1. Add very little amount of a mild natural shampoo to a litre of water and then spray on plant. Then after a hour or so, wash the plant with clear tap water                   Or 2. Use Sticky Whitefly traps to get the flies to stick to the trap and then discard the trap.
4.	Spider mites		It will also suck sap and other liquids from the leaves. A large amount of them can wreck your plant.	1.Use Neem oil to eradicate them
5.	Black Fungus		Will infect the plant leaves and over time will wreck the leaves. With no photosynthesis, the plant may die	1. Take some Neem Leaves and boil them in water. Then take the water and spray on the plant
6.	White fungus/molds		It will grow in the plant soil but affect it much and is easy to deal with	1.Take some black pepper and scatter it all around in the soil                   Or 2. Take the black pepper and mix it in water and then spray it on the plant.

   

  

Attention readers : The remedies given in this article are tried and tested by the author itself on its indoor plants. These remedies were extremely successful on those plants and hence have been recommended. The author is not responsible for any wrong effect that the remedy may cause. The images in this article are shot by the author itself or copied from a non copyrighted source as stated by google.