Divisi
Mealybugs
· Insect
Photo: D-Kuru · CC BY-SA 3.0 at
Mealybugs are soft-bodied, sap-sucking insects that hide under a coat of white, mealy wax. Females and their crawling young cluster on the tenderest parts of a plant — growing tips, leaf joints, the underside of leaves and on the fruit — where they suck the sap and dribble a sticky, sugary liquid (honeydew) that turns the leaves black with sooty mould. Ants farm and guard them for that honeydew, carrying them from plant to plant, and they also travel out on cuttings and seedlings and drift on the wind onto clean crops.
Alexlutor · CC BY-SA 3.0 
Crisco 1492 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Why it matters
Mealybugs quietly bleed the sap out of your plants and can cost you up to 40% of your harvest on crops like cassava, tomato, citrus, coffee and cotton — stunting the tips, blackening the leaves with sooty mould and spoiling the fruit. Once a colony has settled it is hard to shift: the bugs pack deep into tight leaf joints and growing points under a waxy coat that sheds ordinary sprays, and ants stand guard over them and carry them onto your clean plants. Worse, they ride out on cuttings and seedlings, so an infested field also spoils next season's planting material. Catching them early, while the colonies are small and few, is far easier than fighting them once they blanket the crop.
When to act
Colonies with white waxy masses on more than 1 in 10 plants or on growing points, or ants actively tending colonies.
This guidance is general, compiled from published agronomic references including FAO and CABI. Thresholds and timing shift with your crop, your variety and the season.
In much of the region a spray is simply called mushonga — medicine. But a chemical group you cannot name is one you cannot rotate, and a product you did not write down has no pre-harvest interval you can observe. Mushonga, and other farming words →
The full mealybugs field guide
- Identify it
- Scout for it
- Control it
13 field-guide sections in the app
The full guide to mealybugs — every symptom to check, how and when to walk your field looking for it, and the controls that actually work, ranked. Built into your crop plan, so you are told to look before it costs you a harvest.
Crops it affects
Frequently asked questions
How do I identify mealybugs?
The damage shows first: the easiest sign to spot is leaves that go shiny and sticky, then turn black with a soot-like film, along with little tufts of white 'cotton wool' wedged into leaf joints, growing tips and on the fruit. Under attack the tips bunch up, curl and yellow, growth stunts, and young leaves and fruit drop early. On cassava the growing tip crowds into a tight, stunted 'bunchy top' shaped like a candlestick.
When should I take action against mealybugs?
Colonies with white waxy masses on more than 1 in 10 plants or on growing points, or ants actively tending colonies.
How do I control mealybugs?
Prevent it — start clean: never take cuttings or seedlings from an infested plant, and check every one for white fluff before you plant — mealybugs travel on planting material more than any other way. Go easy on nitrogen fertiliser, because the soft, lush growth it forces is exactly what they feed on. And don't crowd your plants: an open, airy canopy leaves them fewer sheltered places to hide.
Which crops does mealybugs affect?
Among the crops covered here: Cassava, Cotton, Tomato.
Catch it before it costs you a harvest
Divisi builds scouting into your crop plan — it tells you when to walk your field, what to look for at that stage, and what to do when you find it. Free for farmers, works offline.
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