Another picture

That looks like the mess left behind by scale insects to me.
I can see some bumps on the stem of the plant in the second picture... can you post a closeup picture of those bumps?

Thx for the reply!
I do my best,
but the plants are far from here.

Another

Another

That thing is infested! Jack is right.....its scale insects, and a lot of them.

Joe

I would just like to butt in and say, Yuck! I HATE scale. Theyre like...juicy, and sticky

D-:

Good luck with that.

If your friend were to find a patch of long grass, and were to place the plants there for a few weeks, you would be surprised at the predators that would have a go and clean up the plants. I've done it myself so I can recommend this course of action.

Yep. Scale. Big ones!
There are various chemical means of controlling them, but out of doors the most reliable way is, as Marguerite says, allowing predators to come and eat them. The long grass is a good idea.

I have to admit, the best thing I've found to control scale is ants. They don't eliminate the scale, but "farm" them for the sticky honeydew they make. The ants maintain a small number of scale that won't damage the plant. They keep the plant clean too. It's amazing.
Do I just have very sensible ants or is that normal?

The problem with ants is they'll move the scales to other plants to increase their honeydew harvest. Maybe the best thing for an individual plant, but definitely not the best thing for a collection. I find chemical controls to be the most effective, and quickest. But, hands down the best, is to spend time each day checking your plants out, that way you'll catch any problems early. Do that and all you have to do is manually remove the pests; no need for chemicals or predators.

Joe

Thank you guys
the quick and proper answers!

No sweat!
I hope you can get the scale under control!

... and if you run into trouble, there's always good old-fashioned squishing.

D-: Squishing?? Ick

Im going to have nightmares tonight...

On a side note, today one of my potted plants fell off my balcony railing and shattered. When I went to pot it back up, a GIANT ant fell out. The biggest ant I'd ever seen.

Turns out she is a new queen. I felt bad about her house. So, on a whim, I got a one gallon jar and started an ant farm :-D

Send your plant over in a few months lol. My ants can farm scales while I farm them ;-)

Lauraeli, you're telling me you never squish?

Myself, I kinda like the personal touch you get with manual squishing.
If there are a lot of them I use tweezers, though...
Heh heh.

Ewww. The only thing worse than a gross bug, is a gross dead bug.

Myself I think the only thing worse than a gross bug is millions of gross bugs eating my plants.
Squish squish!

Oh, but a gross bug that's not eating my plants is welcome.

The only gross bugs that don't eat plants, are bugs that eat people.

And cockroaches.

I'm going to have to disagree, I'm afraid!
Centipedes are gross. Wasps are gross. Blowflies are a bit gross in their own way.
Plus cockroaches aren't all icky. I have some giant burrowing cockroaches as pets. They only eat dried gum leaves, so I can grow plants in the terrarium with them. They're really very cute, in my opinion.

I had one of these for a pet once. That doesnt make it cute ;-) (sorry guys. Patchy made me do it.)

It looks like it's eating one of my cockroaches D:
And yeah... I'll agree that it's not that cute.
What the heck is it, anyway?

Scutigera coleoptrata. :)

*Googles it*
Phew! Not nearly big enough to eat one of my pet buggies.

LOL! it is supposedly eating a cockroach in this picture. A baby one?

They make short work of spiders.

Well, just because it can eat a regular cockroach doesn't mean it could eat mine... They grow to about three inches long.

Poor spiders. Seems like everybody picks on them.

I dont pick on spiders. And in all honesty, arent spiders the lions in the bug world? I think they are the ones doing the bullying lol

Nah...that would be the 'pedes. ;)

Spiders do eat bugs, it's true... but down here, almost everything eats spiders. Even the spiders eat spiders.

But then I guess we have slugs that eat other slugs too, so I'm probably just biased in favour of spiders.

A spider's first meal is usually a sibling. Notorious cannibals.

Didn't know that about slugs! I should read up on gastropods. Mollusks are fascinating creatures.

Yup. The species that eats other slugs is the good old Leopard slug. Native to Europe, but I think people have accidentally brought them all over the world.

From what I've been reading so far cannibalism is common in a lot of slugs including a huge pink one that lives atop Mount Kaputar. a bit north of you. I suspect you knew about it already though.

Edited to add that I found this character while reading about cannibalism in slugs but after a re-read,it was some of the local snails that exhibited that behavior.

Here is a link that might be useful: Look at this crazy slug!

This post was edited by asleep_in_the_garden on Fri, Jun 20, 14 at 5:45

Far out, man.
I had seen pictures before, but I hadn't read up about it until now, so thanks for the link!
Yeah, that is a little bit north of here... LOL

The snails may be cannibals (I don't actually know - I didn't read about them!), but a leopard slug would only be a cannibal for real if it ate other leopard slugs. If it only eats other species of slug, then it's not cannibalism.
It would be akin to a person eating another species of primate.

I see your point and agree completely. Pretty glad I found my way in here...it's been an interesting time digging around and learning stuff.

Well it's been a week now,I wonder how v.bartha's scale infestation is coming along...too soon for an update?

The observation about letting predators clean up your scale problems is an astute one. I've tried homemade concoctions which didn't do much and am not a big fan of 'cides,so when my staghorn fern was under attack a couple years ago,it came as a great relief that once outside,the problem quickly came to an end. Nature is awesome! :)

Hi guys!

We've made some progress!
Using some chemicals (twice).
Squishing a lot!
Then a good shower and repotting.
Made some pics,
enjoy! :-))

Thx for the help again!!!

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Why not just cut off the most infested areas? "Whacking" a jade will only result in better growth, and in this case it is totally necessary in my opinion.

Christopher.