51cg

We have been talking about pests lately.?

My lime tree went back outside three or four weeks ago and now is covered with scale or whatever this is. They scrape right off, but thre or four hours later they are back. There are also a lot of ants crawling around on it.

For the last three days I have been spraying with neem oil with just about no results, so it is time to try something else.

What is the next thing to try?

Neem oil works but not instantly, it takes a few days. Rubbing them off does help, and I would just wait to see if the neem oil has an effect.The other way rather than rubbing off is to use the hose and wash them off, I have done that in the past and it helps.

It is proboably the ants that are farming them and bring them to the tree.

Manual removal and neem oil works great. But you need to adress the ants as well or it will not help. First soak the pot in water to make sure there are no ant colony in the soil. Then put two bricks on a shallow tray and the tree on top of it. Make sure the tray is always full with water. If it evaporates too fast, take a deeper tray and bigger bricks. Most ants cant swim.?

Two points here.?

1. The bricks and water seemed to have worked. I still find a scale thing now and then, but they are probably leftovers. There is a ladybug on three but they are carnivorous so I have left it. There are no ants.

2. Oscar: this thread showed up with a post not read. Clicking it brought up a blank screen. I copied the url to a different browser and the thread displayed but there was no unread post. Tropfrog was the last. The last thing on the url was "/unread" so I took that off of the url and the thread appeared.

Ah there was a spam message before yours - these don't display (all first posts by new users are moderated).

Manual removal, like you've been doing, combined with continued use of neem oil (as suggested) usually works eventually, but controlling the ants is probably just as important.?Another thought might be encouraging beneficial insects like ladybugs or lacewings since they naturally feed on many sap-sucking pests.And honestly, I love the moat idea with the tray of water. Creative problems sometimes need creative solutions. ?

Looks like you've been given great advice here.