Scale

Scouting for Scale at Solstice

Winter Solstice, the first day of winter seems like an unusual time to be outside looking for insects. However, it is an excellent time to scout for both Soft Scale and Armored Scale. With the leaves off trees and shrubs, it is easy to find plants with signs of scale damage and scale.
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Authors
Thomas deHaas

Scouting for Scale at Snowy Solstice

Scouting for scale in the Winter is great use of your time. 

Scale comes in many shapes, sizes and varieties. Last year we saw Oyster Shell, Calico, Juniper, Greedy, Bamboo, Fletcher, Japanese maple, Pine Needle, Brown, Putnam, Euonymus and Magnolia Scale.

Scale is sometimes hard to see when a plant is in full foliage. But in the winter with no leaves on trees and shrubs, except evergreen, scale are easier to see.

Scouting scale in the winter makes sense because there is less to care for outside in the landscape. The following pictures are Scale images on the...

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Authors
Thomas deHaas

Cottony Maple Scale in Northwest Ohio

Earlier this week, Eric Richer (OSU Extension, Fulton County) sent me an image of a maple with almost all of the branches covered with Cottony Maple Scale females that were extruding their elongated, white, cottony ovisacs.  The oval-shaped dark brown females remained highly visible with their ovisacs peeking out from beneath their bodies.  The ovisacs expand to look like 1/4" diameter cotton balls on the branches of their host plants.  The scale has a very wide host range which includes their namesake host as well as ash, basswood/linden, black locust, dogwood, elm, euonymus, hackberry,...

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Authors
Joe Boggs