Care Troubleshooting
The problem and the cure
Not much ails bamboo that regular water and feeding won't fix. It can pretty much hold its own against pests. Providing the growing conditions are suitable for a particular species, bamboo will flourish with minimum aftercare.
Bamboo can adjust in deteriorating conditions such as drying out. If leaves go yellow or orange this is the bamboo relocating nutrients to other parts of the plant.
Some species regularly have brown tips, for example Fortune Inviting, Black and Square Stem. Regular high humidity can prevent brown tips.
Symptoms & possible causes
- Yellowing leaves
- Cold, dry roots, lack of food (Nitrogen), or could be trace elements.
- Lack of vigour
- Roots dried out or roots waterlogged, needs food, pot bound.
- Marks on leaves
- Insect damage. Mites on the underside.
- Browning of leaves
- Salt or chlorine from pools, boggy soil.
- Parchment coloured leaves
- Um…death (If the culm is green then it may recover).
Pests on bamboo
If your bamboo is indoors, no fun spraying insecticide inside your home.
If you can't take the bamboo outside to spray, then drenching the soil in the container seems the safest way to apply insecticides. The poison is delivered to the pests using a systemic pesticide.
Bamboo Mites
Bamboo Mites can be diagnosed by yellow blemishes on upper side of leaves
Can affect Running Bamboo. They make a distinctive web (4 mm x 1-2 mm). You can see them with a 10x magnifier.
Bamboo Mites erect characteristic webbing on the underside of leaves
Straw-coloured to greenish yellow with small blackish green spots, they are quite active, constantly moving about. Occasionally, adults can be found outside the webbing. Probably kicked out to form new nests. Often several webbed nests will form alongside each other running down the underside of the bamboo leaves. In Japan they are termed "Surprise bug" or "bikkuri mushi", because they arrive unexpectedly.
Control
With a systemic insecticide as with Spider Mites.
Spider Mites
Spider mites make webs on the underside of leaves. Mites are small, (probably where they get the name) but a 10x magnifier will pick them up. They are attracted to leaves in dry microclimates. Once established no amount of misting with an atomiser will shift them.
Control
Spray with a systemic insecticide (FENTHION 4 ml/L of water).
Mealy Bug
Actually a scale insect spread by ants.
Mealy Bugs lodge in the join of branches.
They can be identified by a tiny droplet perched atop a filament just 4-5 mm long.
In fact, ants commuting back and forth are a sign that they are milking the small droplets, which are very sweet.
An additional source of sugar - and produced in your own home!
The sooty black stuff "sooty mould", forms from the sugary exudate of the Mealy Bug
Mealy Bugs can be identified by a tiny droplet perched atop a filament just 4-5 mm long
Control
With a systemic insecticidal spray as with Spider Mite.
Nematodes
These are tiny worm like pests that burrow into the roots robbing the bamboo of vigour.
Symptoms for Root Nematodes: Brown blotches on the culms. New foliage emerging from the growing tip shows distinctive lack of green pigmentation then withering of the leaves.
This is not a common problem with bamboo. It can be introduced from outside with lawn clippings.
Control
If you wish to treat them organically, plant lots of marigolds.
For chemical treatment use ‘Nemacur’.