Chapter 6Importance Of

taking Care

1. Be careful when you select your plants.2. Add water to the plant soil.3. Place the plant in the proper light.4. Add fertilizer to the soil. 5. Keep the temperature ideal for the plant.6. Choose a pot that is best for the plant. 7. Check the humidity need of each plant.

Plant Nursery

A nursery is a place where plants are prop aged and grown to usable size.

Common Plant Pest and Their Characteristics

• Ants- sudden wilting may be an indicator to colony building beneath plants removing soil and causing root damage.

• Aphids- come in various colors and suck sap. Stunted growth and distortion of leaves and shoots.

• Beetles-shiny amour like appearance. Some are beneficial but are notorious for spreading Dutch Elm disease by laying eggs.

• Caterpillars- a larval stage of a butterfly or moth. Various species feed on different parts of the plant

• Eelworms – microscopic worm –like a creature that are vital in breaking down organic soil matter but also cause destruction by invading the internal path of a plant

• Mealy bugs- tiny and oval with a fluffy wax. Mostly found indoor.

• Mites – a relative of the spider and often beneficial to the garden but in other cases cause harm by sucking, sap which cause speckling of leaves with a silken web in more severe cases.

• Scale Insects- shell like scale which the eggs are laid under. Hatched insects go on feeding frenzy and excrete a sticky ‘honeydew’ for mould to colonize.

• Slugs and snail- Mostly found in alkaline soils These slimy culprits create irregular holes in plants and attack even below ground and on new growth.

Common Disease in farm garden, symptoms and control

• Most plant diseases- around 85 percent – are caused by fungal or fungal-like organisms. However, other serious disease of food and feed crops are caused by viral and bacterial organism. Certain nematodes also cause plant disease. Some plant diseases are classified as “abiotic” o diseases that are non-infectious and include damage from air pollution, nutritional deficiencies or toxicities, and grow under less than optimal conditions

Fungal disease sign• Leaf rust• Stem rust• Sclerotinia • Powdery

mildew

• Cut no more than one third of the plant’s leaves so the plant will not undergo severe distress.

• Consider sterilizing your pot in the dishwasher, kill bacteria and germs.

• Plants with blight , leaf spots of damage should not sit next to any other plant, regardless if the neighboring plant has signed of a disease. The growth for plant bacteria is rapid and contagious

• Treat them immediately with a fungicide.• Clean up diseased leaves on regular basis.

Avoid overhead watering.

Fungal diseases symptom

• Birds-eye spot on berries• Damping off of seedlings• Leaf spot• Chlorosis

Symptoms of Common Plant Diseases1.Blight: Symptoms include sudden withering and

death of leaves and branches, or in the case of blossoms, wilting and discoloration.

2. Canker: Symptoms usually form on woody stems and may be sunken area, crack, or raised areas of dead or abnormal tissue.

3. Galls: are swoilen masses of abnormal tissue that range in size from small to quite large. Certain insect also cause galls. Cut a gall open and search for sign of an insect inside if you find none, the gall in probably caused by disease.

4.Leaf Blisters are yellow bumps on the upper surface of the leaves with gray depression on the lower surface. Leaf curl disease cause new leaves to be pale or reddish with the midrib deformed.

5. Mildews are usually one of two types. Downy mildew is usually on the undersides of leaves and along stems. It turn black with age

6. Rot diseases cause decay of roots, stems, wood, flowers, and fruit. They can be soft and squishy or hard and dry, and color can be either light or dark

7. Rust diseases typically produce symptoms that include o powdery tan to rust colored coating or soft tentacles.

8. Wilt diseases cause permanent wilting, often followed by death of part or all of the plant

Some Control to be observe to prevent the spread of Plant Disease

• Determine if the plant has chance of survival

• Keep diseased plants away from other plants

• Trim the diseased leaves

• Water your plants without getting the leaves wet

• Repot your diseased plant in sterilized pot using fresh fertilized soil.

• Stock up on planters and pots when they go on safe, so you are prepared to care for your plant immediately

• Fertilize your plants every 10 weeks in warmer weather, including unseasonably warm spring and fall seasons.

• Keep the plant care instruction for all your houseplants. Make sure you carte for them according to the instructions

Division of Insect PestInsect and Their Identifying Features

Damage Characteristics

1.Defoliators

a. Whorl maggot- adult fly is dull grey Female is 8-2.3 mm long: male is green

• Pinhole feeding areas on the levels.

• White and yellowish linear pate lies near the edge of the leaf.

• Damaged leaf tips.• Plant are stunted with few

tillers.• Damaged plants occur in

patches.

Leaffolder- Adult moth in brown with dark bans on the wings. Larva is green.

• Leaf blades folded into tubular structures.

• Longitudinal white and transparent streaks on the

Leaf blades caused by removal of leaf blades caused by removal of leaf tissue • Heavily damaged leaves become dry

Caseworm- adult moth is snowy white or black spots on the wings Larva is translucent green wings a pale orange head.

• Cut leaves rolled into tubes or cases and float in the water surfaces

• Ladder- like appearance of the removed leaf tissue on the leaves

• Plants stunted and produce fewer alders Damaged plant occur in patcher in the field

Rice skipper- adult is brown with small white spots on the wings and skipping\erratic movement. Larva has a constriction behind the flat shaped head.

• Defoliation of plant• Leaves folded into tube where larvae

live

Short-horned grasshopper – adult are about 3cm long yellow and brown with short antennae and bread, Brown strips running laterally along the wings

• Defoliation • Leaf margins cut with midribs intact.

Armyworm and cutworm- adult month has dark purplish brown fore- wings spot line Hind wings are whitish with