Hi everybody I recently found out that the grapefruit tree I grew from seed is infested with scale. I noticed the sticky substance on the leaves and I blamed the ants in my garden (it was crawling with them during summer) and I now realize (thank you Millet!!) that it's actually scale. I took a tooth brush and scraped off the scale as much as I could, then I sprayed the tree with an oil I made based on a recipe I found online. Here's my tree now, I'm not sure I got rid of all the scale though. My question is: how often do I have to spray it before I'm sure there's no scale left? Also, can I hope that it will someday flower? thank you everybody
When using insecticidal soap the treatments have to be repeated every 10 days or so in order to break the scale's life cycle. I repeat the sprays several times then stop at which point onwards I check for telltale signs of scale infestation (i.e. tiny specks of honeydew on the foliage). I'm not sure this applies with oils though. Your tree may not flower for many years, if ever. There have been many past postings in these forums on this subject. You might try searching using the words grapefruit, flowers, and seed*. (The '*' is a wildcard character.)
Thank you Junglekeeper, I'll keep spraying and if it doesn't work I'll buy a horticultural oil. I don't mind if my tree doesn't flower/fruit, I just like it as it is! Should I check/spray my other house plants to make sure the scale didn't affect them as well?
You should first check to see if it's safe to apply oil sprays within such a short period. For the next little while I would look for the telltale sign on the other plants, particularly if they've been in contact with the grapefruit.
