The fruitful king of interiors and everyone’s favorite, pineapple is grown for the sake of medium-sized, but very special fruits. Also, the decorativeness of strict bushes with hard thorny leaves is no less important. This plant is a typical outwardly representative of Bromeliads with a simple character. In living rooms, it is easy to meet the requirements of pineapples for growing conditions. If the pineapple withers, the leaves turn yellow and die off, instead of an elegant bush, there remains a pitiful semblance of a rosette, it’s time to sound the alarm. And look for the reason why the pineapple is sick.
Why is indoor pineapple sick?
Contents:
Description of the plant
Variegated forms and varieties of pineapple large-tufted (Pineapple comosus) again began to often come across on the shelves. While many indoor plants for fruiting require some extremely strict conditions, pineapple pleases in a stable heat, which is easy to create in indoor conditions. This is one of the most suitable Bromeliads for the interior, but at the same time, it is no less sensitive to the quality of care than its brethren.
Despite the fact that the first in indoor pineapples are attracted by delicious and very cute seedlings with a rosette of leaves at the top, the decorativeness of the greenery of the plant should not be underestimated. This evergreen bromeliad flaunts with leaves collected in an asymmetrical, but very elegant rosette and surprises with much more resilience of greenery. Dangerous thorns along the edge of the leaf are almost invisible, so when working with a plant it is easy to make a mistake and forget about them.
Linear-xiphoid leaves up to 1 m long and up to 3 cm wide with a grayish, almost silvery color are often decorated with a strict wide light yellow stripe along the edges, which makes them even more attractive. But both simple pineapples and variegated forms always look elegant.
Fruiting of pineapples is quite predictable. In the second or third year, they release a tall peduncle with very beautiful inflorescences with a couple of hundred small flowers, and in the same year, from May to August, their special infructescence begins to ripen, the ripeness of which is indicated by changes in color and mobility of the leaf rosette at the top.
Care slips
Among indoor bromeliads, pineapple is the only non-epiphyte. It rarely gets sick, but pineapple problems are still typical of this family. Almost always, care misses lead to difficulties in growing pineapples. After all, everything is simple with the conditions: you need to prevent the temperature from falling below 16 degrees, slightly lower the temperature in winter and provide heat in summer. This is a sun-loving plant that is good only on windowsills.
Therefore, most often pineapple is sick due to misses of a completely different kind. This leads to:
- insufficient watering during the period of active growth, especially if the substrate dries out completely and often;
- watering with cold water;
- too abundant watering, as a result of which water stagnates in the pallets and the substrate does not dry out at all;
- too frequent feeding;
- lack of dressings at all;
- extremely dry air near heating devices or lack of fresh air in hot summer;
- sudden temperature changes during airing;
- leaf contamination, dust accumulation, crusting and mold growth of the upper layer of the substrate;
- too dense substrate;
- lack of drainage.
Pineapples in ordinary living rooms are sometimes “decorated” with dry leaf tips. If this happened, then most likely the problem is not entirely in the dryness of the air, but in watering, feeding and care, with which too dry air is combined.
Extremely dry air near heating appliances can lead to pineapple disease. Farmer Burea-Uinsurance.com Inside Storey
The main diseases of indoor pineapple
But some of the problems in pineapples are caused by pests and diseases. They always appear due to errors in watering, feeding and hygiene. If there are signs of pests and diseases, the pineapple should be quarantined immediately.
If a sticky plaque is found on the plant – honeydew – you should not hesitate and immediately carry out the first treatment – a simple washing of the leaves with soapy water. Even if this does not manage the problem, such a simple measure will slow down the spread of pests and diseases and help save the pineapple.
Unlike most crops, pineapples have anthracnose, all types of rot, spotting and late blight are always “side effects” of improper care that makes this plant vulnerable.
Pineapples react painfully to waterlogging of the soil. It is worth pouring the plant several times, and problems cannot be avoided. Most often, rot can be recognized not by depressed growth, but by the oldest leaves, which soften and become covered with dark spots at the base of the plant first. The stronger the problem, the further the rotting of the base of the outlet has gone, the more it will manifest itself.
You can fix problems with rot by changing care, drying the soil, or emergency replanting.
If waterlogging did not become a constant problem, watering was quickly corrected, but traces of rotting are still visible on the plant, it is worth analyzing the quality of fertilizing. Extreme vulnerability in pineapples can be caused by excess nitrogen and overfeeding, which in pineapples causes greater vulnerability rather than explosive growth.
Read also our article Pseudananapple is a great alternative to indoor pineapple.
Pineapples react painfully to waterlogged soil
Pineapple pests
If there are signs that the pineapple is sick, it is worth first of all to suspect harm from scale insectsthat this plant just adore. And black, and palm, and comb, and more “narrowly specialized” bromeliad scale on the leaves of the plant spread surprisingly quickly, causing a loss of decorativeness. Despite the fact that scale insects on other plants “act” relatively slowly, in pineapples their “work” appears immediately. Yellowing, rapidly drying leaves indicate it, the plant withers before our eyes.
Sufficiently dense pineapple leaves allow you to fight quite radically. A simple rinsing is not enough. The most reliable option is to manually remove all visible pests with a harsh cloth soaked in thick soapy water or alcohol (a soft sponge or cotton wool will not cope, and will cling to the thorns). Then – start treatment with insecticides in the concentration recommended by the manufacturer.
If the plant stops growing, the leaves dry quickly, becoming covered with traces of a sooty fungus without visible spots, it is worth suspecting completely different pests – worms… If at first the sooty fungus is almost invisible, then as it becomes infected, it turns into a continuous film. Young pineapples die quickly, on old pineapples this process is slower.
On pineapples, both common and bristly mealybugs are often found, which infect the aerial part of the plant. Even more dangerous is the root worm, which damages the root system and especially the root collar, as a result of which the plant quickly dies from rot.
You need to fight the worms radically and quickly. The first step (in addition to isolation) in case of a mealy and bristly bug is washing the plant with soapy water and then gently wiping the leaves with a piece of cloth soaked in alcohol. But you still cannot do without subsequent treatment with insecticides.
But with root worms you will have to fight dramatically: watering should be limited to a minimum, completely drying the substrate and adding a solution of a systemic insecticide to the water for irrigation. The plant must be monitored, and at the first signs that the insects have remained on the roots, repeat the treatments. If several of these procedures do not help, it is better to destroy the plant.
Read also our article How to grow pineapple at home?
If you keep pineapples in the heat, near a battery, skip watering regularly and do not keep the leaves clean, the plant can easily suffer from another pest. Red spider mites spread on pineapples quickly, multiplying rapidly. On hard leaves, they are easy to find, because the finest cobwebs are clearly visible. If you do not start the fight on time, the leaves will slowly turn yellow and fall off, more often without drying out.
In the early stages, spider mites can be dealt with with simple hygiene with spraying, which creates an unfavorable environment for insects. In case of severe damage, it is worth starting washing with soapy water, and if it does not help, spraying with insecticides is necessary.
Pineapples often suffer from a sedentary relative of the most common indoor pest – orchid aphidwhich is easy to spot on the top of the leaves.
To cope with this pest on pineapples can only be treated with an insecticide, but subject to an early start to the fight. In order to prevent such an infection, when chemistry will not help either, it is better not to ignore the rule of regular inspection of the leaves.
If there are signs that the pineapple is sick, it is worth first of all to suspect harm from the scale insects. Farmer Burea-Uinsurance.com Maja Dumat
Natural death of mother’s sockets
Like all Bromeliads, in pineapples, mother rosettes that die after flowering and fruiting are replaced by new plants. The appearance of root offspring is the first sign that the pineapple is dying due to completely natural reasons.
Usually, the daughter sockets are separated when they grow up to at least 5-6 cm and they have full-fledged roots of their own. But sometimes purchases are disappointing: improperly driven pineapples, which were forced to bloom at an accelerated rate with the help of stimulants, do not have time to give offspring and die after the fruit ripens. You should not be upset, because the plant has another method of reproduction – apical rosettes, from which strong plants are obtained.
