Diana Kulaga wrote:
Gene & Rob,
I have a question for both of you. Thankfully, scale is generally not a huge
problem for me. I see it now and then, but seldom, really. And I have never
seen anything that I could identify as crawling scale. When I *have* had
scale, it appears attached to the plant, having sunk its wicked fangs in
already. Thorough searches have not produced anything further.
Am I missing something?
I suspect there are a lot of different kinds of things called scale.
And no doubt many different species that get lumped into a few misused
categories. My particular bane is what I've always heard called
boisduval scale. The adult scale (females, I think) are flattened
hemispheres with a somewhat hard shell, but they are easily rubbed off.
The juveniles and (perhaps) the males are small, thriplike little SOBs
that form fluffy white masses under leaves and in various nooks. I've
never wanted to have it around long enough to take a picture...
However, others have different scale. I have seen 'soft scale' which are
basically scale without the hard shell, flattened ovoids that you might
think were bald mealy bugs. In my experience they were more dense on
the infested plant than other types, but very easy to kill. I've only
ever seen it on one paph that I bought in florida. There is another
scale that I call by a latinized name of a well known vendor (I really
shouldn't put it into electrons) which I think is 'Hemispherical scale'
or some other equally useless common name. Easy to kill if you caught
it early, but evidently very hard to eradicate once established. Mealy
bugs are a type of scale, if I understand it right (I have actually seen
them move, not the other kinds).
As a general rule that is almost certainly bogus, the ones you see are
usually the females, which are large and not mobile. I think males and
juveniles are small and mobile, and can cover some ground.
--
Rob's Rules:
http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit