Help scale attack!

[jwhawaii]

I've tried 3 applications of ultrafine horticulture spray each a week apart (in fact, twice since March). It seems to slow things down only a little bit but the goal of eradication has not been met.

At this point I am more than willing to try chemicals, does anyone use malathion to kill these nasty creatures? If so, what ratio to water do you use? And finally, must you scrape off all the dead scale? Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Mahalo!!

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

If the oil is not eliminating the scale, you are probably not being thorough enough. You probably need to soak the root area as well. You can't miss any surface, and roots count, when you use oil. I have used neem, but one has to worry about temperature with its use as well as with other oils. It is too hot right now for its use. Malathion will do nothing. You need to either smother them with an oil, or use a systemic. Orthene might work if you make sure you drench the roots since I have heard that it is systemic from the roots up, but not from the leaves down. Probably want to repeat in a week or two. I have had a cast iron plant, aspidistra, that nothing worked on, and finally dumped outside to over winter(13F) where it would not transfer its scale to anything else. The problem with the plant was that it transpired so slowly that it never sucked up enough systemic, and that it had a hundred leaves, and the neem never covered it well enough. Cynthia, Prescott, AZ

[jwhawaii]

Cynthia, Thank you for the advice. I will try the horticulture oil again (soaking/drowning everything!) and let you know how it goes. But, in the meantime, do you know of an on-line source to buy orothene? I've read many good things about its ability to knock out pesky critters and would like to have it on hand for the next bout of nasty invaders.

Mahalo!

[ryan_d_cruz]

jwhawaii, I recently had an attack of soft scales and a lot of ants on the plant, and thought I kept clearing the scales they just seem to come right back, so I thought that the ant was carring them around, but I was wrong, see this link,

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7408.html

anyway the point is that I got rid of the ants along with the scales and I don't have any more scales on the plant, so if u have an infestation of ants u might want to clear them out (I don't know what is keeping the scales under control). If you have hard scales, you could try cleaning the plant off with rubbing alcohol as well...all the best