Treating mealies ,coming into dormant growth

Hey all ,so I have major mealie bug infestations in many of my young cacti (aaaarrrgghhh!!!) so i went out and got some Confidor (imidacloprid) like other threads mention are the go. BUT, will soaking the plants overnight cause problems ? I did want them to dry out before the onslaught of winter ,as it rains alot over here (SW WA) ...They are root mealies, so i was wondering if i should instead bare root them all , discard the soils and then spray the roots?... that way they will dry out faster ready for dormancy ?....Would the roots handle being left wrapped in newspaper over winter until spring do you think? Or should I soak the soil and the pots and hope they dry out in time ? Oh yeah i read in a thread that it is best to soak with a systemic during active growth so this is another reason i am worried

I'm not very experienced with Root Mealie, but in general you "shouldn't" treat a dormant plant with an insecticide. The problem you have is over the next few months the mealies will most likely kill or seriously damage the plant anyway, so you have got to weigh it up. I think your better off treating them especially if it is a bad infestation.

As for soaking them over night it all depends what plants we are talking about. Soaking Trichocereus would be fine while soaking Ariocarpus would most likely cause them to rot. You can up root them and treat the roots directly I think this would be most successful, just let them completely dry out and replant with new soil in a week or so.

Don't soak just water like this couple of times, then speed of up the process of the drying of the soil with fan/heat if you're worried about coming of winter.

I would not bare root, but from what you say I would definately treat with something...

But I am not the most experienced cactus grower, ya know..

Well I better not procrastinate for too long ,its just that things take a while to dry out down here at this time , but i did think of putting them in a dry warm fanned area to help dry them out like you say mutant , but that area is already jam packed with grafts etc...I never before knew there was such a thing as root mealies until now, only the ones you see above ground . While i sprayed and squished the ones i could see the root mealies were having a party , its a lesson well learnt now though.

Hey blowng.

You could try dusting the bare-rooted plants with diatomaceous earth, and then plant them in a sandy/gritty mix containing more DE. DE works fairly well for fungus gnat larvae, so it might affect mealies too ('though I've not ever heard anything specific), if you can get it close enough to them.

If you confidor them first, and leave them to dry off a bit in a non-humid atmosphere, you might further increase the chances of killing the buggers.

I'm now actually thinking about planting in clear plastic containers, inside opaque containers, to give myself another way to keep an eye on the state of my plants. I just need to find containers that would give a snug system...

I hate these things. They've ruined some good epis, and now I've discovered an infestation of scale on my orchids. The buggers have absolutely exploded - I checked only a week ago and there where none; now I have literally hundred of the tiny devils working their harm on the oldest leaves first. I made my own white oil for these, but I am worried that it'll suffocate the orchids as it did some of my epis.

I'm quarantining plants I know that are healthy, and next summer I am going to go through a serious decon process.

Which gives me an idea... this would be a good subject for a thread for newcomers and old-hands alike. I'll start one now.