Posted by Tom Broome on 10/6/2009, 9:07 pm, in reply to "Cycad Scale"
205.188.117.67
--Previous Message--
: Well, my Sago's have gotten invested
: with this pest as well, one really
: bad, one medium and one just a
: little. I've cut the leaves one the
: worst one and sprayed with
: Hortibotanical Oil and just focused
: on the worst leaves on the others.
: Now I did the coffee ground mulch on
: one to try this. The guy at Starbux
: said to not do too much of that
: because "the acid might kill
: the tree after rain". Is that a
: valid concern? Also, when I study
: the white pest I also see (mostly on
: the bottom side of the leaves) a few
: brown and black small
: "bugs" - a little bigger
: than the white scales. Is that part
: of this pest or another bug that is
: latching on to a weakened plant?
: Thanks for the input.
:
If you read my article on the coffee, it tells you right there that there is no concern on pH (so you can inform the Starbucks guy of this, before he tells anyone else some wrong information). Because the grounds are already brewed once, it takes a lot of the acid out. I tested about 20 bags of Starbucks grounds and they were pretty much all a pH of 6.2 where my potting soil is 6.5, which the difference is no big deal. If you have a soil that is above neutral anyway, like it can be in Florida here, it can only help a little.
What you have are other scales. There are round scales that are white, black, and brown. There are many other scales as well, but I'm guessing some of these are that kind. The oil should smother most of those if you sprayed real good on the bottoms of the leaves as well as the tops.
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