I have been 'hand treating' scale on my indoor potted lemon, by swabbing off individual scales with Qtip/toothpick, dotting some with alcohol and wiping down branches with alcohol diluted swabs. As you can imagine this is labour intensive and causing me to go cross eyed, so I was happy to read the H.Oil solution! My questions would be:1) Can I take it outside on a nice'ish' day(not sunny) and spray it, then rush it back in, or is it too cold outside? 2) Can I still ingest the few lemons that are on it with no ill effects 3)Will the blossoms/buds/teeny lemons-though there are not many-survive also? Or, to help it recover the scale attack(which it lost many leaves to before I realized it was scale) should I snip off the lemons/flowers buds? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I noticed some dang spidermites today too, so Im being overrun!
Horticultural oils can cause leaf burn, leaf dropping and fruit/flower damage. However since you've got scale and mites I think it worth the risk to use it. After 24 hours you might consider giving it a shower to remove most of the oil. You may not kill all the mite eggs if rinsed off too soon though.
I have used h oil and found it quite effective Some of the leaves will drop but mine came back. I just treated again again this fall as I see a few scale remaiing. I will spray again in 10 days. Seems to at lease help. bcbabe
