Hi all! I have a few beautiful Cycads in my garden which have been thriving for years without issues. The other day I noticed these white spots on the underside of a few leaves of my one Cycad but after extensive Googling I can't seem to find anything online with a clear answer on what this is. Is it a fungus, bug eggs or something else? Thanks in advance for your help!
Cycad/Sago Plant
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A severe infestation of a hard scale insect. Treat with an oil based insecticide such as Neem Oil.
Greetings, welcome to the Forums.
Interesting, this is a different species than the widely-feared Asian Cycad Scale (Aulacaspis yasumatsui), native to southeastern Asia. Possibly this is a species native to South Africa, that originally occurred on native Encephalartos Cycads. Do you know which species of Cycad are in your garden?
In any case this is a severe infestation. I recommend spraying with neem Oil or another Horticultural Oil. The main intent is to cover the scale in oil so they will physically suffocate. If possible, I also recommend first scraping of as many scale as you can, perhaps with a dull wooden or plastic knife. If that job is too immense or onerous, it may be skipped, but it can help immediately reduce the damage level to the plant. I don't know about this species, but the Asian Cycad Scale can kill a large Cycad within a year.
Interesting, this is a different species than the widely-feared Asian Cycad Scale (Aulacaspis yasumatsui), native to southeastern Asia. Possibly this is a species native to South Africa, that originally occurred on native Encephalartos Cycads. Do you know which species of Cycad are in your garden?
In any case this is a severe infestation. I recommend spraying with neem Oil or another Horticultural Oil. The main intent is to cover the scale in oil so they will physically suffocate. If possible, I also recommend first scraping of as many scale as you can, perhaps with a dull wooden or plastic knife. If that job is too immense or onerous, it may be skipped, but it can help immediately reduce the damage level to the plant. I don't know about this species, but the Asian Cycad Scale can kill a large Cycad within a year.
Thanks so so much Chuck and Marck for your in-depth replies, it's truly such a massive help and so appreciated. We have about 6 or 7 cycads in close proximity in our garden so this is very worrying. I will head to the nursery first thing in the morning to purchase the oil as well as scape as many of them off as possible. I am not sure what species of cycad they are but will check tomorrow, I've had them for about 30 years and have never had any issues with them. Thanks again for all your help!
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I don't know too much about ornamental plants but here in Texas we have a lot of cactus and that scale looks identical to what here is called cactus scale. Most scale is more or less a solid color but this is the only scale I have seen that has a dark dot in the middle of it. Could you take a close up picture of it?
The Scale Insect (Coccoidaea, Homoptera) shown in the OP might be Aspidiotus capensis. It is a species endemic to South Africa that is an obligate parasite on Cycads. I only found a few identified images. The images look similar, though the exuviae (central circular areas) look somewhat darker in the OP photos.
Hi all. Thank you so so much for your insight, it definitely does look like Aspidiotus capensis and there doesn't seem to be much written about it online. Here are some more photos in better light as well as a photo of one of the cycads, it seems to have spread to every cycad already which is worrying. I bought some oil today which will hopefully fix this problem. Thanks again for your help!
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Just remember that after you spray these things they will NOT fall off of the plant. They are literally stuck to the plant, sort of like a barnacle on a piling. On some plants you can safely scrape the off but I have found it best to let the plant grow a little and force the dead scale off naturally. I would spray once every 5-7 days with a total of 3 sprayings.