Tiny egg sacs under ponytail palm...

Trouble shoot problems you are having with your cactus.
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AToad
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Tiny egg sacs under ponytail palm...

Post by AToad »

Hey All,

I bought this ponytail "palm" on a lark in an odds and ends shop about three years ago- it looked healthy, had a racket ball sized pup, and was only five dollars... It was planted in straight compost, so when I got it home, I decided to repot it. When I pulled it out of the pot, clustered all around the drainage hole, on the inside were these tiny yellowish eggs. I removed the eggs and rinsed as much excess soil away from the roots, the repotted it in a fresh, unused mix that I use for my succulents and cacti. Whatever lays these did not seem interested in the caudex or foliage of the plant, and the roots seemed healthy enough as well. The next couple years passed without incident, though I have remained wary of the plant and don't let it sit too near anything else.

In the last two months or so, the pup has begun to shrivel, and the leaves have stopped growing. I turned the pot over only to find that a new, massive, cluster of these eggs has developed - far bigger than the first one I saw. I have just sat for a half hour inspecting the plant, looking for the layer of these eggs, but there are no bugs on it. The eggs a very small, perhaps 1-1.5 mm in diameter, slightly fuzzy, completely dry to the touch, and tinted yellow. Attached below are pictures. I have not unpotted it yet, because I am hoping to have a treatment in hand before I give it a fresh pot and potting mix this time, so I don't know if the roots are being eaten or if the bugs might have burrowed into the pup's caudex or something nefarious like that. The mother plant's caudex remains firm, and it hasn't stopped growing or producing new leaves.

My first thought was mealybug, because mealybug CAN eat ponytail palm, and the eggs are slightly fuzzy, but I have never seen mealybug lay eggs that tightly, in that sort of honey comb-esque pattern, also there are no bugs, mealy or otherwise, visible anywhere on the plant. After about an hour of Googling, I think that the closet matches are earwigs on the eggs... but I can't tell. Slug eggs are a little similar, at least in size and shape, but these eggs are totally dry.

Has any of you ever seen these before? If so, do you happen to know whether it is necessary or how to treat them? I'd seriously appreciate any information/advice you might have on them. I worry about bees, so I try not to use insecticides, but if I need to, I will, and I will just make a note not to compost this potting media.

I am in Upstate Ny in USDA Zone 5b.

Thank you so much for you time!

-A
Attachments
Some of the tiny eggs stuck to the plastic saucer. You can see how small they are against the backdrop of my finger tips.
Some of the tiny eggs stuck to the plastic saucer. You can see how small they are against the backdrop of my finger tips.
photo 1 (1).JPG (81.18 KiB) Viewed 1192 times
Here the eggs are under the pot, by the drainage hole. They are about 1mm in diameter.
Here the eggs are under the pot, by the drainage hole. They are about 1mm in diameter.
photo 2 (1).JPG (70.43 KiB) Viewed 1192 times
The pup is miserable.
The pup is miserable.
photo.JPG (97.15 KiB) Viewed 1192 times
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adetheproducer
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Re: Tiny egg sacs under ponytail palm...

Post by adetheproducer »

Is it eggs? Looks like a slime mold that was posted a while back, not sure who posted it but almost identical.
And as the walls come down and as I look in your eyes
My fear begins to fade recalling all of the times
I have died and will die.
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Steve Johnson
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Re: Tiny egg sacs under ponytail palm...

Post by Steve Johnson »

adetheproducer wrote:Is it eggs? Looks like a slime mold that was posted a while back, not sure who posted it but almost identical.
Looks like slime mold to me too. Common pests such as mealies and spider mites deposit their eggs on the plant, not the bottom of the pot. AToad, take a good look at your mix. If it's too rich in organic materials (and I think that's your problem), you'll have to lean it out more with something like NAPA 8822 (Floor-Dri), Turface, or better yet -- pumice. However, that's just my guess since I don't have any real experience with succulents. You'll get better advice if you post your inquiry here.
If you just want photos without all the blather, please visit my Flickr gallery.
My location: Los Angeles, CA (Zone 10b)
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CactusMad
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Re: Tiny egg sacs under ponytail palm...

Post by CactusMad »

Hi,they do look like eggs but i don't know for sure.If they are i would be tempted to keep some until they hatched so that i knew for certain what they were.


Sylv.
AToad
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Re: Tiny egg sacs under ponytail palm...

Post by AToad »

Thanks so much for the suggestions, guys!

adetheproducer - I checked out some pictures of slime molds, and while the overall shape is similar, the slimes seem to have a more brachial/fractal growth pattern, whereas this stuff seems to have gone down one node/egg at a time.

Steve Johnson - That mix is two parts each perlite and vermiculite and one part plain compost - but the mix it was in when I bought it was nothing but garden compost. Whatever this is was in there when I bought the plant (I just didn't see it because it was inside the pot), so if it is indeed a slime, I suppose all it needed was to have gotten the slightest foothold, and then it almost wouldn't matter what the plant got moved into when I repotted. Also, thank you for the forum suggestion, I will post there as well.

Sylv - That is a good idea - maybe I will scrape some into a yogurt cup or something to see what they do.
KittieKAT
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Re: Tiny egg sacs under ponytail palm...

Post by KittieKAT »

Do u think it could possibly be small pieces of perlite that have sunk to the bottom of the pot and out of the drainage hole in the bottom then dried to the bottom of the pot? I would try poping one of them to see if it is hard or squishy or sounds like perlite being crushed...
Or u could get a magnifying glass and take a better look to see if they have anything inside of them like little white/black lava, i hope its nothing serious. Goodluck
KittieKAT
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Re: Tiny egg sacs under ponytail palm...

Post by KittieKAT »

They kinda remind me of snail eggs, when my snail had them in my pond tank. But i could be wrong.
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