7. THE OYSTER SHELL SCALE, although it is essentially the same in its
habits and in its methods of sucking the sap from the tree is not as
bad a pest as the San Jose scale because it is less prolific, there
being but one brood a year. Still this scale often destroys a branch
and sometimes a whole tree. The "lice" winter as eggs under the scale
and hatch in late May or early June. After crawling about the bark for
two or three days, the young fix their beaks into it and remain
fastened there for life, sucking out the sap. By the end of the season
they have matured and secreted a scaly covering under which their eggs
for the next season's crop winter. A smothering spray like lime and
sulphur applied strong when the trees are dormant will practically
control this scale. But the young may be destroyed in summer by a
contact spray such as tobacco leaf extract or whale oil soap.
8. THE LEAF BLISTER MITE is a small, four-legged animal, so small as
hardly to be visible to the naked eye. It passes the winter in the
bud scales and as soon as these begin to open in the spring it passes
to the tender leaves which it punctures, producing light green or
reddish pimples according to the variety of apple. These later develop
into galls or blisters of a blackish or reddish brown color and
finally result in the destruction of the leaf. Trees are sometimes
practically defoliated by this pest, and this at a time when a good
foliage is most needed. Inside of the galls eggs are deposited and
when the young hatch they burrow in all directions. In October the
mites abandon the leaves to hibernate in the bud scales again. A
strong contact spray of lime sulphur when the trees are dormant
destroys the young mites while they are yet on the bud scales, which
is practically the only time when they are vulnerable.
9. APHIDES, or plant lice, are of seasonal importance. Although nearly
always present, it is only occasionally that they become so numerous
as seriously to damage mature apple trees. But they are more often
serious pests on young trees where they should be carefully watched.
Their presence is determined by the curled and distorted condition of
the terminal leaves on the under side of which the green or pinkish
lice will be found. Eggs deposited in autumn pass the winter in this
condition, hatching in the spring about the time of the beginning of
the growth of vegetation. From these winter eggs females are hatched
which bear living young, which may also bear living young and so on
for several generations until autumn, when eggs are again deposited
for the winter stage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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