How to tackle scale insect | Peach and apricot maintenance
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- Our peaches and apricot have been hit with a substantial infestation of scale insect - this has had a particularly bad effect on one of the peaches. I talk about the routine spring maintenance of the plants and how I am tackling the scale insects.
Thank you! Always educational, and I learn so much from your videos
Thanks :)
I don’t grow peach and apricot but I do like to see what your up to and support the channel. Hope your both doing well have a fantastic week Jonny, Ali 🌦️🇨🇦
Thank you so much - it is always a pleasure to hear from you :)
Hi Jonny, Aphids, the Harliquin of insects! Old redundant bristle toothbrushes are my go to when I'm removing quantities of the "suckers" from rose buds and suculent stems etc. Delicate enough but efficient, especially from those aukward constrained areas. Saves on the green (insert other colour as appropriate) stained fingers. As ever - a peach of a video!
I've never tried an old toothbrush for that job - but maybe I will now!
Thank you for your timely video. If its any consolation your video has helped me to deal with my two nectarines heavily infested with scale. The peaches seem relatively unaffected. Thanks again.
Glad it helped :)
As always, a wonderful video :) Thank you.
:)
Ugh, scale - a nightmare on citrus. I had a couple of trees badly infested, couldn't face the squishing so I just sprayed them with soft soap. A few hours later we had a thunderstorm with torrential rain and the trees were washed clean with hardly any scale left, what a stroke of luck 😊
That sounds like a good result! I haven't grown any citrus for many years, but I can just imagine scale being a real nuisance on them.
Thank you, I always learn so much from you. I’ve been keeping an eye on my newly planted peach as I’ve noticed lots of ant activity, but no other insects. I was interested to read that peach leaves can have nectaries that attract ants, which I think is what’s happening on my tree. But I’ll be keeping an eye out for scale and aphids.
Ants can be quite helpful if they aren't there farming aphids/scale... if you can't see aphids on the young growth near the end of the new shoots and can't see lots of scale insect, then I don't imagine you can have much of a problem. If you see any sooty moulds developing, they are hiding somewhere.
@@jonnyskitchengarden thanks!
I’ll have to check mine.
Lordy I had a similar infestation with woolly aphid on an apple tree last year - but a decent application of a jet of water from the hose pipe was very helpful! Out of curiosity had you considered a drop of neem oil in the soap mixture? I have never tried it, but seen many others try it to apparent good effect - what are your thoughts? However best of luck with the 'clean up'! I look forward to next time.
I seem to recall that there was something that I didn't like when I was reading about neem oil, but it was so long ago that I can't remember what it was 🤦♂️ I haven't used it and I think soft soap is sufficient for my needs. Woolly aphid can be a nightmare - and it makes a mess of the tree, too, if not dealt with!
always look forward to your videos and this was very interesting, thank you. What soft soap do you use Castile?
I don't remember exactly what I bought - the label disappeared long ago - but I'm pretty sure it was an organic Castile soap from olive oil (as it should be, but often isn't).
My peach has got the leaf wilt again.
Is it outdoors? You only have two options, really - plant a variety with some resistance or keep the rain off the plant, at least during the spring.