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Don’t be Buggin’ Out
Published March 8, 2009
The past year hasn’t been easy for gardeners, says Master Gardener Monica Krancevic.
“Quite frankly, this last whole year has been terrible for gardening,” she said. “No rain, the hurricane and persistent winds.”
Besides the weird weather, gardeners are also keeping an eye out for three insects threatening plants in this area. Not all are causing major problems, and vigilant gardeners can help keep it that way.
Scandalized by scales
First up is the Asian cycad scale, a tiny insect that made its way into Florida in the 1990s, and has been working its way toward Texas ever since.
“We’ve found it in Texas, and in Brazoria County probably three or four years ago,” said Paula Craig, county Extension agent-horticulture for the Texas AgriLife Extension Service. “I just see it every once in a while. It’s not that widespread, knock on wood. But the insects do reproduce very quickly.”
The insect attacks and can kill sago palms and other cycads
“There’s a more common scale that gets on cycads, and it only stays above ground,” Craig said. “The problem with Asian cycad scale is that it can get below ground and affect the roots, which makes it harder to fight.”
Also making scales difficult to defeat is the fact that they have no natural enemies in this area.
“In Asia, there are two predators to keep them in check,” Krancevic said. “Here, there are no known predators.”
The Asian cycad scale causes small, yellow, round discolorations on the top of the palm frond, she continued.
“The scale starts usually on the bottom of the frond, but the top is where you see it, because they’re eating through from the bottom,” Krancevic said. “Then if something isn’t taken care of very quickly, the plants look like they’ve been flocked with snow.”
When scales first hatch, they can be blown around by the wind, or carried from yard to yard by passersby who brush against an affected palm.
While insecticides can help combat Asian cycad scales, a universally effective way of eliminating them hasn’t been discovered.
“It is something people should be good scouts for, because it hasn’t become an epidemic, but it could,” Craig said.
Threatened by thrips
Chilli thrips, another species of insect affecting surrounding counties, don’t seem to have made it to Brazoria County yet. Craig said she hasn’t seen any. However, the tiny bugs have been discovered in Harris and Montgomery counties.
“It has attacked more than 150 species of both ornamentals and important food crops,” Krancevic said. “The problem with that one is that the critters themselves are very tiny. The damage they do can look a lot like pesticide damage or other diseases. Things get all curled and distorted.”
Home gardeners who think they might have chilli thrips in their garden can get information from chillithrips. tamu.edu, a Web site maintained by Texas A&M. Because the damage done by chilli thrips mimics other kinds of damage, it’s important to make sure what’s causing the trouble before starting to use insecticides.
Mealybug misery
Finally, there is one insect that is causing a lot of trouble close to home.
“The one that has really taken off is the pink hibiscus mealybug,” Craig said. “It doesn’t have any natural enemies and it multiplies like crazy. And it gets on all kinds of stuff; citrus, anything in the hibiscus family; anything from eggplant to cotton. We’ve seen quite a bit of it.”
The Texas Department of Agriculture reports that the mealybugs were found in Pearland last June, but it seems not all gardeners are concerned about it.
“The Department of Agriculture guy told me they went to this development that had a lot of hibiscus and were going to work on trying to eliminate (pink hibiscus mealybugs)” Krancevic said. “And there were people who just said they didn’t care. They wouldn’t allow them into their yards and weren’t going to do anything about it. That’s how things spread.”
Pesticides can help with any of these insects.
“You can use horticultural oil if you want to go the least toxic route,” Craig said. “It’s a highly refined oil, and you can get it at garden centers or the feed store. After that, you’ll need to use some sort of drench, or a systemic pesticide that’s absorbed by the plant.”
If a plant dies because of any of these pests, Craig and Krancevic both recommended double bagging it and putting it out with the trash. The plant shouldn’t be composted or mulched, to keep from spreading the pests.
People also need to look at what they’re buying and be discriminating about accepting plants from friends.
“What people need to do is start really looking at their plants for these particular pests,” Krancevik said. “There’s not likely to be signs of anything on any well-grown nursery plants.”
Also, taking good care of a garden makes plants stronger, Krancevic said.
“You want to keep them as healthy as possible, because they’re more able to fight off disease and pests.”
BUGS AT BAY
Texas A&M makes a lot of information available about garden pests and how to combat them. Check out the following Web sites:
• For information about Asian cycad scale, visit http://tinyurl.com/TAMU-ACS
• To learn about chilli thrips, visit http://chillithrips.tamu.edu/
Mary Openshaw is a features writer for The Facts. Contact her at (979) 237-0155.
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