Lucky me I’ve got the first known examples of this species in Europe living on one of my Ficus!

Apparently it’s common in Florida as a Citrus pest and is difficult to treat as it lives under the bark. Symptoms include tumerous cankers on twigs leading to desicated branches.

Anyone experienced in successfully fighting this foe please give me the benefits of your experience.

Happy New Year to the whole group and a prosperous one for our industry.

Thanks Tony

I have used horticultural oil mostly on smaller specimen. I use a systemic drench on bigger specimen, in addition to an oil application.

Insidious, they are. I refer to scale as the insect worlds anaolgy to abalony.

Best of luck.

Hi Tony. May I ask are you an interiorscaper in England? Hope I got that right. First, try to contact the nursery that the plant came from. Exotic pests should always send up some red flags, and there is a chance that you can participate in the awareness of the problem within the industry in your area.

How large are your specimens and how many ficus are infested? If it a 14" tree, you may consider simply replacing the plants as this pest seems to cause very visible damage.

How much damage has occured? Is the bark peeling yet? Is there any dieback in the branches? If you choose to treat I would apply merit as a drench and a spray immediately in conjunction with other insecticides in your arsenal in rotation. Good luck.

Yours in benevolence,Lynnae Dehoff.

Tony,

The application of a drench of Merit (Imidacloprid), or oil, for this pest could land you with six months in prison and/or £20,000 fine in the UK if you were to apply it to a tree on your customer’s premises. If you’ve still got the tree on your own nursery, then you have a much wider range of products to choose from. I would also agree with Lynnae and get in touch with your supplier and importer, who may have inadvertently sold other infested plants from the same batch to other interior landscapers throughout Europe.

The only approved pesticides for interior landscapes in the UK are an Imidacloprid soil drench (Desyst) for the control of sciarid flies and a deltamethrin-based spray (Deleet) for foliar feeding pests (so not under the bark). There is also a specific off-label approval (SOLA) for the use of Imidacloprid (Intercept) for the control of Bemisia tabaci white fly on interior landscapes, but that is because it is a notifiable pest. You might be able to get a SOLA for imidacloprid for this pest - you would probably need the help of the manufacturers to compile the data dossier to give to regulators for this.

The import of exotic pests on plants, particularly from Central America (and other places), seems to be developing into an increasing problem in Europe - giant millipedes and rhinoceros beetle larvae have both crossed my desk in the last couple of years. I think it is time we had some better traceability of our plants throughout the supply chain - bar codes and RFID chips are cheap and might give us a whole lot more information about the history of the plants we buy.

A Happy New Year to interior landscapers everywhere,

Kenneth Freeman

Thanks for the replies so far. Yes Lynnae I’m from sunny England where, as Kenneth’s emails tells you, we’ve got no access to chemicals to sot our problems out. (It always amuses me to meet you guys at ALCA(ok Planet) or TPIE conferences and hear you say how tough a regulatory environment you trade in.

We’ve been using IPM but as there’s no experience with this pest no one knows what might eat it. There is some evidence that at some point in the past a parasitic wasp has been killing them but we don’t know if this was in Florida or Holland (through which it was imported). Anyone have any ideas here?

Kenneth I’ve lost you email address (thank you Mr Gates)but get in touch and I’ll tell you more about the supply chain - I certainly intend to tell all those I know.

tonym@enterpriseplants.com

Tony, try emailing Dr. Lance Osborne. LSO@mail.ifas.ufl.edu
He is an eminent professor of entomology at the University of Florida who has done extensive research with biological control. Good luck. Lynnae.