Control of Brown Soft Scale on Ficus Under Greenhouse Conditions, Winter 1997

Abstract

Abstract Ficus cuttings were rooted in 15-cm pots and allowed one yr growth (40-50 cm tall) before use. The plants were fertilized with Osmocote (14-14-14) four wks prior to use and irrigated every other d for 3 min by drip system. By the time we conducted the trial, the plants were moderately infested with brown soft scale. Single terminals (10 cm of new growth) were arbitrarily selected to monitor the efficacy of selected pesticides. The number of live brown soft scale on the leaves and stem recorded. A pre-treatment count was taken on 13 Jan (wk 0) and was followed by a single treatment application. Post-treatment counts of live scales were taken in wk 2. A second treatment was applied on 30 Jan (wk 2) and post-treatment counts were continued on wks 4 and 5. Spray treatments were applied using a backpack sprayer at approximately 25 psi. A RCB design was used with 3 replicate-blocks per treatment. ANOVA was performed on the data set, and LSD was used to separate the means. Data were transformed (log +1) prior to analysis to satisfy the assumptions of ANOVA.