Help With Pest Identification
- Thread starter Ryan77
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Looks like a soft scale insect. Use Neem Oil
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Those two terminal appendages make me think Aphid. Plus, it doesn't have that really distinctive flatness to him that soft scale does. Could you get a photo of the affected area on your plant? Are there a bunch of these suckers agrigated in one place? Aphids will go for the soft new growth, and move with the budding areas on the plant. Scale will generally find a vein and stay there because their legs fall off once they attach.
Neem oil will probably still work, but another quick way to deal with aphids is to spray your plant with some water with a drop of Dawn mixed in. It'll suffocate the aphid and kill it. Won't keep new ones from showing up, though. You do have to be a bit careful with detergents, because too much on the roots can stunt or kill your plant. Once a week is probably fine, but if you notice your plant looking sad, lay off. You can also order great heaping piles of green lacewing eggs (their larvae are voracious aphid predators) or adult ladybugs. I'm certain there are pesticide sprays for aphids, too, if that's more your style. However a lot of stuff at the hardware store that's labeled for aphids is actually a very broad insecticide that'll kill off anything that happens to be in your garden, including beneficial or predatory bugs.
Neem oil will probably still work, but another quick way to deal with aphids is to spray your plant with some water with a drop of Dawn mixed in. It'll suffocate the aphid and kill it. Won't keep new ones from showing up, though. You do have to be a bit careful with detergents, because too much on the roots can stunt or kill your plant. Once a week is probably fine, but if you notice your plant looking sad, lay off. You can also order great heaping piles of green lacewing eggs (their larvae are voracious aphid predators) or adult ladybugs. I'm certain there are pesticide sprays for aphids, too, if that's more your style. However a lot of stuff at the hardware store that's labeled for aphids is actually a very broad insecticide that'll kill off anything that happens to be in your garden, including beneficial or predatory bugs.
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