Scale insects are a real nuisance: their hard shell provides excellent protection against contact poisons, and each female lays around 2,000 eggs per year - so the animals are not only stubborn, but also spread quickly. Our tips will help you recognize and contain a scale insect infestation.
How can you combat scale insects on olive trees?
To combat scale insects on olive trees, you can stick lice sticks into the plant substrate or spray the plant with an oil and water mixture. When removing them manually, you should spray the lice with soapy water and then wipe them off.
Scale insects damage olive trees
Scale insects are very difficult to recognize. Since the females in particular are immobile, they protect themselves from external influences with a hard shell. Under this shield, the animals suck out plant sap and thus valuable nutrients, and they also release a poison into the plant cycle that gradually causes the host to die. Also under the shield, the female lays up to 2000 eggs from around June, from which the larvae then hatch. In contrast to the adult scale insects, the larvae are mobile and migrate to other parts of the plant and neighboring plants. Scale insects excrete a sweet honeydew that attracts other pests, such as ants or the star sooty fungus.
How can you recognize a scale insect infestation?
Scale insects are usually only visible when the infestation is already very advanced. The tiny animals camouflage themselves excellently with a color that matches the plant, and they can usually be found on the underside of the leaves. Check your olives (and other houseplants) regularly for scale insect infestation. You can recognize a current infestation by these signs:
- Olive tree rolls up leaves
- Olive tree drops leaves
- Leaves on the olive tree dry up
- Leaves change color / turn brown
- a whitish coating can be seen on the leaves
Fighting scale insects
In most cases, only chemistry can help against stubborn scale insects. So-called lice sticks (€14.00 on Amazon), which you stick into the plant substrate, are best suited. These contain a poison that the plant transports to the lice in the sap. As a result, the animals die. You can also mix a little oil (please not rapeseed oil, olives don't tolerate it!) with water and pour it into a spray bottle. Spray the plant with this mixture and repeat the process every few days. The oil clogs the scale insects' airways and causes them to die. Mechanical killing is also possible: spray the scale insects with soapy water and wipe them off with a spoon or similar. In any case, you should separate the infected olive tree, otherwise the infestation can spread to other plants.
Tips & Tricks
Scale insects usually attack weak plants that suffer from a lack of light and/or are too warm. As a preventative measure, you should place your olive tree as sunny and not too warm as possible - especially in winter!
