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My indoor basil plant has been forming these brown beads on the bottom of leaves and on stems. I think it might be sap that's been oozing out that's turned brown / hardens when exposed to air.

In the photo, you can see:

  • the brown bumps on the stem (center)
  • the brown bumps / sap on the underside of a leaf (right)
  • sap (before it turns brown) on a leaf (bottom)

I also notced that a lot of the green leaves have tiny yellow/white specks (you can see it in the leaf at the top of the photo)

I've checked, and I can't see any visible insects / parasites.

Does anybody have any ideas what's going on? What should I do?

Brown ooze / sap on Basil

Sherwin Yu
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1 Answers1

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It looks like a scale infestation. Unfortunately, Basil, being an edible plant, isn't that easy to treat because you can't use heavy duty insecticides, so its probably best to dip a cotton bud or something similar into white spirit or alcohol, dab the scale insect (the brown lumps) and remove them. There will be nymphs, the immature form of the scale, on the plant too though, and you can't use alcohol on the leaves to get rid of those. Neem spray might help, but wash the leaves before use. If Basil is readily available where you are, I'd bin this one, and get another, but otherwise, do the alcohol treatment and just use any healthy leaves you can see and struggle on. Some information on scale insect here https: Scale Bug – How To Control Plant Scale.

Ken Graham
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Bamboo
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