ok. i found two cottony scale insects. meaning there might be more. one of them had that cottony egg sack all over it. i clearned the trees as much as posible.

thought about buys some lady bugs, but it seems the shipping season is over.

any suggestions on controlling it? i don't see infestation yet. only seen two of them so far. no damage or sap leaking out of trees. but i want to prevent this turning into something nasty in future.

pete

Dip a Qtip into alcohol and dab it onto the insects. Instant kill!
Get an empty spray bottle and fill approx. 20% alcohol and the rest water.
Spray the entire tree soil and pot.

Do this a couple time and you should be fine.

Ah, mealybugs...

rafed,

that alcohol solution seems like something i can do. i'll monitor it closely and see if it's needed.

just called local biological company and they have lady bugs that they either ship or pick up. rather expensive.. but i'll see if i can get some for the trees.

pete

Pete,
You can find Ladybug eggs on ebay along with the Mantis.
Don't know how well they work though ( as far as hatching ).

looking into amazon.com, they have places selling 1500 lady bugs for $12 or less. the local company was charging $22 for 100. i might go ahead and order the lady bug from the amazon.com.. with 1500 of them, i'm sure they will pick off anything that's around my surrounding area.

pete

Mealy bugs can be controlled with most any insecticide or insecticidal soap. You just have to be consistent with spraying every few days to kill the tiny ones that you can't readily see. Alcohol on a q tip works too, but it's easy to miss some. Surprised that you are seeing them on figs. 

Even if you are only able to succeed with only a third of them hatching you are still ahead.

BTW,
Do you have citrus near by?

Barry,
I use Safer brand, works well.

no citurs near by. saw the first one few days ago on my Paradiso Gene. it looked like conch shell, but had white beard hanging on it. i just got rid of it and cleaned the white stuff.

today, i was looking at my Smith green cutting, and noticed tht there was another one. this one didn't have too much "whie beard". but i had to clean it up anyway.

since it was conch shell looking and had "white beard", i assumed it's cottony scale bug. if i see another one, i'll take picture before steping on it.

pete

Keying on the word 'cottony', it could also be some
sort of a leaf-hopper in their early stage of life.
I have seen some of that, usually at the green
growing tips of starter fig plants still in shade.
Not much of a concern... 

Definitely show us a photo.  The rubbing alcohol you get in stores is already 70%.  If you buy the 90% type it will draww water out of the air until it becomes 70%.  You need at least 50% to kill mealybugs.  I use the 70% straight out of the bottle.  But these may not be mealy bugs.

A batch of ladybugs worked beautifully for me. Wiped them out.

If I see them again, I'm ordering lady bugs. From what I read, lady bug love cotton scales.

Usually, I'm too busy killing to take pictures when I see something weird.

Pete

i found two more yesterday. took some pictures. my camera phone isn't taking any large picture of small objects.

this thing jumps around.. i mean.. it will crawl, but when i tried to pick it up, one of them jumped rather far and was gone. didn't look like it was flying.



Pete

Not sure what it is but it isn't a mealy bug, they don't run and jump, they move very slowly

plant hoppers, Gorgi called it.

whatever it's called.. it's dead now. but so far i saw 4 of them. hope they are not going to cause problem down the road.

pete

What I had appeared to be woolly aphids. Someone called them mealy bugs. They did hop and move quickly. Regardless, the ladybugs found them delicious.

As BLB said, they're not mealy bugs.  Aphids are sometimes farmed by ants so you'll want ant deterrents (tanglefoot, ant bait) as well.

Nope. Not an aphid. I know what aphids look like, and this isn't it. It much larger. And no ants around.

All the indication point to some type of plant hopper. I'll just keep on killing 'em until I get tired of it. Gives satisfying 'CRUNCH'.

Pete

Plant hoppers look like leaves, while leaf hoppers look like tiny cicadas. I have way too many trees to go after them and I never see any damage where they have been.

Maybe one of those recent alien, home invading (young) brown stink-bugs?

Next time, I'll use better camera. Only thing I care about is if they will hurt my trees. If they don't, I don't mind killing one or two here and there.

Pete

A little nature here and there may just be OK.

Check this just to be sure