Control of the Pine Tortoise Scale by Aerial Application of Insecticides

Abstract

The pine tortoise scale, Toumeyella numismaticum (Pettit and McDaniel), was epidemic on jack pine in Marinette, Oconto and Florence counties in northern Wisconsin during 1953 and 1954. In the spring of 1954, 2900 acres of jack pine plantation in Marinette County were heavily infested. Four hundred seventy-four acres had been killed during 1953 by the scale. Some of the timber had been expected to reach marketable pulp log size within the next four to five years. The infested plantations showed the same symptoms as those which died in 1953 had shown during that year.