San Jose scale

              NEW MEXICO COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS
AND AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION
Press Bulletin 326
*  . •-" ? SAN JOSE SCALE
The San'Jose' Scale has received more notoriety, has been the cause of more
legislation, and does more injury to fruit interests of the country than any other
insect.
The scale attacks all parts of the fruit trees, including the trunk, branches,
leaves, and fruit, and can easily be detected on the young twigs and fruit, which become spotted with small red circles which form:around the scales. Badly infested
trunks and branches present a rough, grayish appearance. The mature San-Jose Scale
is small, circular in outline, convex, with a nipple-like prominence  in the center.
If a female scale be carefully turned over with a knife, there will be exposed
a flat, yellowish mass of protoplasm. It has no legs, no wings, no head", but does
have a long, threadlike sucking beak with which it bores into the bark of young trees
and draws out the sap-. 'Each female is supposed to produce 200 male'and -200 female
young; and added to this, counting four generations a year, there will be produced,
according to Dr. L, 0. Howard, J,216,089,400 male and female scales from one original
individual in one season. Thus it is easy to understand why an untreated infestation
becomes very bad in a short time.
Lime-Sulphur Solutions for Control: There are two important sprays made with
lime and sulfur, and the favorite-washes used for winter or dormant spraying. The
spray not only kills the scale, but adds in the control of many fungus diseases.
The first of the two sprays is colled the home-boiled, and is made according to the
following formula:
Stone lime 20 pounds
Sulfur 15 pounds
Water 50 gallons
To prepare the spray:  Into the boiler or kettle place 5 or 6 gallons of water;
to this add the sulfur which has been passed through a sieve; then the lime, a small
quantity at a time. Fire should now be made under the boiler. After all the lime
has been added and is through slaking, add water to keep a good boiling consistency
and boil vigorously for 40 to 60 minutes (until the mixture is a brick red). The
solution is now ready to be thinned and strained carefully into spray tank or barrel;
sufficient water being added to make 50 gallons. This wash should be applied
promptly after preparation, since the contents harden on cooling.
The second of the two sprays is called the Factory-boiled, and can be purchased
from factories as such. It is very similar to the first, only it is in concentrated
form. This should be diluted with 8 to 10 parts of water to make the winter spray.
If good lime cannot be had and proper care taken in the making and straining of the
solution, preference should be given to the factory-boiled preparation.
There is a third spray made from lime and sulfur, so called self-boiled, that
is used as a summer fungicide, and the first spraying may be made just after the
bloom has fallen. Lead arsenate may be used along with this spray, at the rate of
three pounds to 50 gallons of water, to kill codling moth.
The formula giving the best results is;
8 pounds sulfur (flowers)
8 pounds burnt lime
50 gallons water