Bromeliads and mosquitos

[dimitris]

hello to everyone !

I have several bromeliads mostly neo' s attached on my twin washingtonia filifera and some potted plants and i have a big problem with mosquitos nesting inside the rosetes and laying their eggs ! Is there anything that can i do to kill the larvae of mosquitos whithout harm the plants ?

In the past i had the same problem with mosquitos in my ponds but my fishes take care off them !

Unfortunately fishes don' t fit in my bromeliads !

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

Get yourself some mosquito pond dunk donuts. They are infused with bacillus thuringensis that kills mosquito wigglers. Just dissolve the dunks and put in a sprayer and spray the bromos' cups.

[BS Man about Palms]

blast with water hose?

[ariscott]

you don't have frogs living in your bromeliads???

[Gonzer]

blast with water hose?

That's my preference, just change the water every week. Hose out the leaf bases also. Or put a tiny splash of mild liquid dish soap in the cup.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Gonzer

[redant]

Get yourself some mosquito pond dunk donuts. They are infused with bacillus thuringensis that kills mosquito wigglers. Just dissolve the dunks and put in a sprayer and spray the bromos' cups.

They also make this in a powder now that you can just sprinkle in the cups.

[dimitris]

you don't have frogs living in your bromeliads???

Unfortunately i don ' t have any big size bromeliad , so there isn' t any room for the frogs !

[cycadjungle]

I use the used coffee grounds from Starbucks, that they give away for free. Not only will it kill the larvae, but you are giving your plants a little bit of organic nitrogen as well as a little manganese and calcium. The grounds will kill insects for over 4 months, but if it gets washed out of the cups, you may need to add some from time to time. Tom

[realarch]

We get so much rainfall here the cups wash out almost everyday, so it's a losing battle. Besides so many mosquitos anyway a couple hundred more won't make much difference.

[dimitris]

I use the used coffee grounds from Starbucks, that they give away for free. Not only will it kill the larvae, but you are giving your plants a little bit of organic nitrogen as well as a little manganese and calcium. The grounds will kill insects for over 4 months, but if it gets washed out of the cups, you may need to add some from time to time. Tom

I like the idea with the coffee grounds , is very easy !

I have some questions , the coffee grounds must be roasted or not ? must be whole or cracked to smaller pieces ?

There will be any coloration in cups from the coffee grounds ?

Can' t wait for mosquito killing and a home made espresso !

[Tropicgardener]

Interestingly I haven't ever seen evidence of mosquitos at all breeding in my bromeliads......this has been a topic of conversation and debate here for years especially when there are is an outbread of Dengue or Ross River virus. May be something to do with the types of mozzies that occur here but most other growers agree that they simply do not bred in them.

[KrisKupsch]

Find some mosquito fish and put in there!

[KrisKupsch]

The volume of water in bromeliads compared to the volume in the surrounding environment that you cannot see-that harbour Mosquitos would be substantially small, so your efforts to rid Mozzies from your Bromeliads would have an insignificant difference to their overall numbers.

[Pedro 65]

Interestingly I haven't ever seen evidence of mosquitos at all breeding in my bromeliads......this has been a topic of conversation and debate here for years especially when there are is an outbread of Dengue or Ross River virus. May be something to do with the types of mozzies that occur here but most other growers agree that they simply do not bred in them.

I Agree with above from Andrew, our gardens have "plenty of Broms" that are all in"very well lit areas" of the gardens that have no mosquitoes or larvae.. We do get a few Mosquitos in the "dark areas" of our rainforest planted gardens in the hottest months, the most common place I find Mozzie larvae is in the crownshafts of the fallen fronds which are full of water as we live in a high rainfall area, I simply turn the dead frond over which empties the caught rainwater. Mosquitos are not a problem here but if they have all of a sudden massed in numbers I check my gutters which always has a few leaves ( We have a lot of trees close to the house) caught and pools of rainwater are "full of mozzie larvae", I try and keep our gutters clean...Dimitris, since you live in a very low rainfall area of the world, just hose your Broms on a regular basis so they overflow and take the larvae with them.

[ariscott]

I have big small giant frogs living in each and every broms. I am sure they do the great job in keeping the mozie population down.

Regards, Ari

[cycadjungle]

I like the idea with the coffee grounds , is very easy !

I have some questions , the coffee grounds must be roasted or not ? must be whole or cracked to smaller pieces ?

I am using used coffee grounds that are fine and have been used in a drip type system. There are plenty of alkaloids still left in the coffee to do this job. Finely ground fresh coffee could be used but the pH is much lower and there are other chemicals that are cooked out from the brewing process that you might not always want in your plants. Or, you can make sun tea out of your used grounds and make a liquid that can be directly poured into the cups, though, it would be somewhat diluted and might not last as long as granular coffee. Even though this does not have anything to do with bromeliads, here is an article I worte 4 years ago that explains what I was doing with cycads:

http://www.cycad.org/documents/Broome-Coffee-2007.pdf

There will be any coloration in cups from the coffee grounds ?

There will certainly be a darker color of water. I can't tell you whether it would stain the plant itself over months of treatment, but I can say, that in my limted use, I haven't seen any stains on the plants.

Can' t wait for mosquito killing and a home made espresso !

[malcthomas]

I have a real problem with mosquitos...I attributed much of this mossie problem to the bromeliads until I was told by someone here that mosquito larvae did not live in brom vases... Since being told this, I have never seen a wriggler in a bomeliad.

I had a medical doctor visit my property one day....He said he missed his real calling and that he would have rather been an entomologist specialising in mosquitos if he had his time over again...within a few minutes in the garden he had identified a number of different mosquito species and explained that the preferred habitat for the larvae of our native mosquito was in the petiole bases of the Nikau palm.

cheers

[Tropicgardener]

Interesting stuff Malcthomas..............same here, haven't ever seen a wriggler in a brom vase ever.

[Kim]

Rising concerns about the spread of serious mosquito-borne illnesses prompted a google search, and this thread popped up.  I have absolutely seen wriggling mosquito lavae in the larger bromeliad cups and recently poured buckets of soapy water into those near the house.  I also did a general fogging of the property. Ironically it was the darn flies that harassed me after the fogging. I hung mosquito netting around an outdoor seating area, but it was not 100% effective in keeping the buggers out due to a breeze lifting the netting -- must add weights.

Are there any newer ideas for treating a 2-acre property, some of it very rough and wild?  As it is, even if I were to get rid of all bromeliads, mosquitos would still be a problem.

[SubTropicRay]

I've also heard cinnamon powder acts a natural fungicide and mosquito preventive.  I'm currently trying it out.  Zika is creeping ever closer.....

[Kim]

12 minutes ago, SubTropicRay said:

I've also heard cinnamon powder acts a natural fungicide and mosquito preventive.  I'm currently trying it out.  Zika is creeping ever closer.....

Interesting -- how do you use it? 

[Cindy Adair]

I knew the fungicide/bactericide  claims for cut ends of orchid leaves but have never heard of the insecticidal property theory. 

Cinnamon trees are easy to grow so I have three. Wonder if a leaf or twig would be repellent?

All this talk makes me happy about all my nightly loud frogs and cute lizards and fascinating bats and birds that eat mosquitoes for free!

VA had tons more mosquitoes than where I live in PR. 

[LJG]

Kim, I never had a mosquito issue until I got big into broms. Now I get them in periodic waves if not treated. I use to see tons of larvae in all my cups. On a 2 acre lot in tropical HI I don't know how you can really stop it. I read they can sense people 150 away and can travel 20 miles a night. In my yard I just try to limit their offspring amount by putting one drop of malathion into all the large broms. It might last up to a month or so before the sprinklers finally dilute it enough to where I find larvae again. The malathion doesn't damage the brom from what I have found the last few years of doing this. 

Ray, let us know how it goes. I wonder how long it would stay active before breaking down or diluting from rain.

[Silas_Sancona]

7 hours ago, SubTropicRay said:

I've also heard cinnamon powder acts a natural fungicide and mosquito preventive.  I'm currently trying it out.  Zika is creeping ever closer.....

Ray, if you come across any, also try Tumeric.. That was another natural larvicide id read about. Powder worked ok in the containers i used to collect water with but alas a good downpour would dilute it. Pieces of the actual root might work better, esp. in Bromeliad cups.

The Zika concern down there sounds pretty alarming, especially since it seems the Mosquitoes are developing resistance to the pesticides they have been spraying. It also doesn't help that the main Vector is a low flying species and the pesticides supposedly work best on Mosquitoes thought to fly higher.

[tropicbreeze]

I have a photo of a frog with a big bloated mosquito sitting on it still gorging itself with more frogs blood. Frogs probably are just as subject to mosquito bites as humans are, and probably only manage to eat as much as humans manage to swat. Insectivorous microbats are better mosquito hunters and also, day shift, dragonflies are.

On my place I have some bromeliads which people have told me should be removed because of mosquitos breeding but I also have hundreds of pandanus, not to mention the tens of thousands of them in the general area. The bromeliads are the least of the problem.

But an effective strategy I have is to leave water containers out for mosquitos to breed in. The containers are regularly emptied into fish ponds. I rarely need to provide them other food. And I rarely have mosquito problems. No matter how many potential breeding sites you remove, they'll always find other sites.

[Alicehunter2000]

Seems like any plant related question is always answered best by palm people. 😀

[Rivera]

I moved all my mesic "tank" broms to the front yard due to bug issues. Due to my close proximity to the ocean, it's much too windy and exposed out there for mosquitoes or other weak flyers. 

Only xeric broms in the back now, nothing that needs a full tank of water. 

It wasn't what I wanted to do, but I can't be bothered with drops and powders and such. Flushing didn't seem to be an adequate control.