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bonsaiTALK Journeyman
Join Date: Mar-2008
Location: Seattle, WA
Country: USA
Posts: 28
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by froufrou
Thanks for the pics Barbara.
It kind of looks like the white scale in the photo, but not as irregularly shaped. More like an oval dome. I've looked at other scale photos online, definitely could be scale.
Any non-plant-harmful measures I can take in case it is scale? Will manually scaping them off help a little? There's not much really. How likely to spread to other junipers and pines?
I'll bring it to my bonsai club meeting and ask them what they think.
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It is scale, the white "cocoon is a queen, the attaches her sucker to the needle and the stuff you find when you scrape your finger nail over it is usually the eggs that start to hatch in May. Do your fingers turn purplish from squishing it? My mugo pine I planted 4 summers ago has it. I'm trying to fight it by scraping them off, but there are a lot. Down the line I had planned on using it as a Bonsai (it is still in the ground), so I'm glad it is still pre-Bonsai. I'm going to prune it way back. It's hard to kill them at this stage the best time is when the eggs start to hatch, first in May, then they have another hatching cycle later in the summer, July I think. Wind spreads them, birds, so if you have any other conifer near it move them. I don't like to use chemicals so if you start now and keep using your fingernails then you may get it done before they hatch. Also do any of your needles have some little light green spots on it? They would be about the size of a half grain of rice, and a little skinnier too. Just google scale and you will get all kinds of information on it. Unfortunately I have uninformed neighbors all over the park who have it, and it keeps spreading. |