Yellow Poplar has scales

[treerex]

There are black scaly looking organisms on the underside of the branches of my young Yellow Poplar. They can be removed by simply scraping them off, but they are everywhere. When they are scraped, a reddish liquid comes out of them. Are they a threat to my tree? What can I apply to get ride of them. The Ants in the yard seem to really like them, because they are always crawling around in the same vicinity.
Thanks for any assistance.

 

[Stumper]

Insecticidal soaps work fairly well for most scales and have the advantage of being very safe to handle and apply. Many other insecticides work as well. It is usually about as easy as dropping by the nursery and reading some labels. When you do spray you will want to check the condition of the scale in a few days-it doesn't go anywhere so you want to assure yourself that it is dead/dried up.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

A healthy tree, especialy a young one should not have a scale problem.

You should look at what environmental problems are present that are predisposing the tree to the infestation.

 

[Dan F]

It is probably too late to apply dormant oil now. If you can wait until then (I would try other things in the meantime) use dormant oil late next winter/early next spring before the tree leafs out. Dormant oil is a smothering agent and basically cuts off the oxygen supply.

As Stumper said, stop by the local garden center and read some labels. You might start with Orthene, I think it is probably labeled for that type of scale, and it needs to be used I think around August.

I would suggest going to a garden center other than Walmart, Kmart, Home Depot, etc, since most of the employees will probably get a blank look on their face when you ask what you need to use to get rid of scale. I would suggest a garden center that is not a chain store and has been in business a while. If they don't know off the top of their head, they should have reference materials, probably the first one they should pull out is the big Ortho book.

Hope this helps.


Dan

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I would still try the soaps first before going for a big gun like Orthene. Regular use of organo posphates bother me, they are nerve agents after all, and somewhat persistant. I reserve them for those problem pests that can be devastating like Japanese beetles defoliating every tree on a property.

properly timed foliar application of soaps can control the crawler stage of the pest and help reduce popluations.

 

[treerex]

Thanks guys

I would like to try the soaps first. Can you give me a trade name or distributor you could recommend.
Thanks

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Any garden center will have the products, I know people who use dishwash for the same purpose. I'm no longer licensd or certified to use pesticides for-hire, so of course I would never be using anything to kill a bug for money these days.

That's just a surfactant to make the foliar fertilizer more effective.

 

[Stumper]

John, Regarding using dishwashing liquid. It is my understanding that many dishwashing products are detergents but not necessarilly "soaps". I have read that using the dertergents is potentially harmful because of a greater tendency to strip natural waxes off of leaf surfaces compared to true soaps. What do you know about this?

 

[mquinn]

I would like to try the soaps first. Can you give me a trade name or distributor you could recommend.

M-Pede is a widely available insecticidal soap. another thing, that i don't see stated, although jps has alluded to it, is that soaps work great on soft scales, but not on hard ones, unless you are treating the crawler stage. that's easy to hit if you have applied some double-side-sticky cellophane tape around twigs where the scales are located and check it every few days - the crawlers will get trapped on the tape. if you're spraying soap at the wrong time on hard shell scales, you're wasting your time and money - so if you've got oyster shell scale (or another hard scale), either make sure you know when the crawlers are active before you apply a soap, or just go with the dormant oil treatment.

black and scaly makes me think of a hard scale, but ants hanging around makes me think of honeydew, which sounds like soft scale.

make a positive identification of your pest very first thing before you decide what you need to do about it.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Large crawler populations will exude enough honeydew for ants to come by. Heck, on big elms here it will smear your car window.