Diseased plants: scale insects

2024-10-22 Gallura Disinfestazioni posted:

If you have noticed that the leaves of your plants are yellow, wilted and deformed, they may have been infested by scale insects!

What is scale insects?

Scale insects are parasites that feed on the sap of plants. Through their sucking apparatus, scale insects are able to pierce the plant to suck out essential nutrients.

There are different types of scale insects:

- Low scale insect citrus

- White scale insect citrus

- White scale insect peach

- Helmet scale insect citrus

- Maritime pine scale insect

- Mealy scale insect citrus

- Gray scale insect citrus

- Comma scale insect citrus

- Cottony scale insect citrus

- Cottony scale insect olive

- Dogwood scale insect

- Half peppercorn scale insect

- Hazelnut scale insect

- Black pine scale insect

- Strong red scale insect

- San Jose scale insect

- Tortoise scale insect

- Olive cottonworm

Each type of scale insect is distinguished from the others primarily by the type of plant it infests and therefore by the type of climate it prefers. The different species of scale insects are also distinguished by their appearance, as the name of many of them suggests (white, cottony, peppercorn, red, etc.). This type of insect therefore has its own peculiarities and characteristics in each of its subspecies.

Scale insects damage plants by piercing them to suck out essential nutrients using a proboscis. During this process, they expel a viscous substance known as honeydew. This not only makes everything under or around the plant sticky but also promotes the development of sooty mold, a fungus that manifests itself as black mold on the leaves, further compromising the health of the plant and its ability to carry out photosynthesis.

Recognizing a scale insects infestation can sometimes be complex until obvious signs emerge.

If you do not intervene quickly after the symptoms appear, a scale insects infestation can cause serious damage to plants, even to their death.

It is therefore essential to adopt control strategies aimed at eliminating the infestation promptly. It will also be essential to adopt the correct plant defense strategies in order to eliminate favorable environmental factors and improve the vegetative conditions of the plant in order to prevent future infestations.

Taking care of the plants and lawn of our garden means acting with adequate maintenance of the same in order to defend them from these plant parasites. It is therefore necessary to intervene in a targeted manner on the infestants and work in a preventive manner to avoid their future proliferation.

It is important to plan careful maintenance of the lawn and ornamental plants present in our garden, for this reason the technicians of Gallura Disinfestazioni carry out a careful analysis of the infested plants in order to plan the best control and/or prevention plan to protect the health of the plants.