Yuck, what is that??

[L Powell]

Long time reader, first time poster. I have a tree that seems to a have mixture of fire blight and some yet to be determined mass growing on the branches. There are several hundred small wart like modules on the branches. When touched, they burst and a small amount of puss oozes out. Bee's and Wasps seem to be attracted to modules. Overall the tree looks to be in bad shape. Help!!! I am looking for identification and suggestions for resolution.

 

[Beverly]

Not sure if they are called scale or aphids @Chuck will know, but the ants bring them because they are sapsuckers and the ants harvest the liquid as they do with aphids. I scrape them off with a twig or fingernail or flush them off with a stream of dishsoapy water. The suds are what kills them but doesn't bother the plant. If this is a large tree, i would trim down the tree to make it easier to clean it up. I don't know about the blight, have a little patience, some one will come along who knows more about this than i do In the meantime welcome to the forums @L Powell

 

[Larisa]

Hi, @L Powell !
This is some sort of Coccidae.
But I'm not sure that your country has the same name. I agree with Beverly.
@Chuck will tell you in detail.

 

[Chuck]

Long time reader, first time poster. I have a tree that seems to a have mixture of fire blight and some yet to be determined mass growing on the branches. There are several hundred small wart like modules on the branches. When touched, they burst and a small amount of puss oozes out. Bee's and Wasps seem to be attracted to modules. Overall the tree looks to be in bad shape. Help!!! I am looking for identification and suggestions for resolution.

@Beverly is correct. That is an insect called Hard Scale. There are literally hundreds of different varieties, different colors, different hardness, different trees and plants. They are all sap suckers and can do great harm if not controlled. You mentioned fire blight. Do you mean areas of the limbs or trunk turning black? If so it is caused by the insects. This looks like a deciduous tree and if so in a few weeks the tree will loose it leaves. This is the easiest time to kill them. Every 4 or 5 days spray the entire trunk and limbs with either horticultural oil or Neem Oil, preferably Neem. Do this 3 or 4 times. The oil will smother the scale and kill it. However the scale won't immediately fall off of the tree. It will take a few months for this to happen although it is dead. When spring arrives and as the leaves are in bud spray again just to make sure you got them all.
Also you may as well closely inspect all of your other shrubs and trees for them. If you don't get them all just remember Arnold Schwarzenegger's famous words, "I'll Be Back."

 

[waretrop]

It's scale and very disgusting....On small plants you can take a paper towel and just smash them on the stems then water them off..Yuck . Then keep and eye on them to keep it away. Neem oil is the next thing.

It's a yucky bugger....but easy to get rid of.

 

[Chuck]

There are 2 types of scale insects. Hard and soft. Soft scale is NOT attached to the plant, hard scale IS attached and does not move, ever. Soft scale, which includes mealy bugs, are easily smashed and they crawl around. Many times you will see some of each on a plant but not always. What the two have in common is that both hard and soft scale have a waxy substance on them which makes contact insecticides less than preferable. Oils cut off all the oxygen and they smother. Neem oil works both ways. It smothers and also acts as a contact killer. Left alone scale will eventually kill a tree although it takes quite some time. Scale insects appear when a plant is stressed, either by some disease, a watering issue or nutrition. Very rarely will you ever see scale of either types on a healthy non-stressed plant. Before commercial organic fertilizers were available scale insects were very common. Now organic gardeners rarely see them but gardeners who still use synthetic nutrients see them quite often, especially after years of using oil based synthetic fertilizers.