Orange bug eating passionfruit vine. Please help! (forum)

90 starts with ...
Hi,

I planted my first passionfruit vine recently, a grafted black nellie kelly. But quite a few of its leaves have turned a dull silvery colour and some have been nibbled at. On closer inspection there are very small orange bugs on a fair bit of the vine (I've attached photos). at first look I thought the silver might have been caused by sun burn. But I think it might be more likely that these little orange critters are the culprit.
Does anyone know what they are? Or the problem is?
Any control suggestions?
Any ideas would be much appreciated.
Sorry if I've missed a discussion on it in the forum.
Kind regards,
Camille
Pictures - Click to enlarge

Picture: 1
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Picture: 3

Time: 21st October 2015 4:06pm

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About the Author 90
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Lissa says...
Knock the bugs off with a regular strong blast of water.

Time: 26th October 2015 6:54am

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About the Author Lissa
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90 says...
Hi Lissa,
Thanks a lot for answering my post. Any idea what they are and how I prevent them from coming back? It's gotten worse since I first posted.
Have a great day.

Time: 26th October 2015 2:06pm

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Lissa says...
It is nice to have a response isn't it lol. Doesn't mean others aren't reading and sympathising.

My advice would be, don't fret over a few bugs. Nature has a way of finding it's own balance. Are they killing your plant? I suspect they are just eating a few leaves. Wash them off with the hose if you feel they are doing too much damage. Or pick them off by hand. Stay away from commercial chemical sprays. You could try making some home made spray (lots of recipes on the net) but I have found them pretty useless myself.

If you can take some good up close photos of the insects you could try emailing them to your local museum for identification, depending on where you live. Or check out http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/

There are other sites on the net for identification if you search.

Give it time and they will go through their life cycle and go on their merry way.



Time: 27th October 2015 6:41am

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About the Author Lissa
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90 says...
Oh, that's a good idea on where to ask about identification, thanks Lissa. They are really damaging the plant and I don't think it will survive without intervention that's stronger then blasting them with water or squishing them by hand unfortunately.
I was thinking that spraying it with pyrethrum might be worth a go. I prefer not to use spray but the problem is getting worse. I'll definitely follow up on trying to identify them though.
Thanks again :)
Camille

Time: 27th October 2015 9:04pm

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