Archive:Poplar/Scurfy Scale

From Bugwoodwiki

scurfy scale Photo by Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org Taxonomy Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Hexapoda (including Insecta) Order: Hemiptera Family: Diaspididae Genus: Chionaspis Species: furfura Scientific Name Chionaspis furfura (Fitch)

From: Ostry, Michael E.; Wilson, Louis F.; McNabb, Harold S., Jr.; Moore, Lincoln M. 1988. A guide to insect, disease, and animal pests of poplars. Agric. Handb. 677. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture. 118 p.

Contents 1 Importance 2 Biology 3 Monitoring 4 Control

Importance

This insect sucks sap from leaves, branches, and trunks of Populus and various other tree species. Single trees or clumps of trees may become infested by a great number of scales, which kill shoots, branches, and occasionally the entire tree.

Look For:

• Dead and dying branches on trees.

• White to dirty gray, flattened, pear-shaped scales (one-eighth inch long) on the bark. Often in large numbers they appear as a whitish crust on branches and stems.

Biology

Eggs overwinter beneath the female scale, and crawlers hatch in spring. Nymphs settle down on the bark and grow into adults by late summer.

Monitoring

Inspect trees for scales any time of the year. Scales will usually infest isolated trees or clumps of trees. Consider control only when 10 percent of the trees are heavily infested and many branches die.

Control

• Prune and destroy infested branches.

• Spray individual infested trees or stands for the crawlers with an insecticide recommended for scale insects.