One possible unwanted side effect from our warm winter??

For me this is unquestionably the worst year ever for pests in my garden.Between the various scale insects and the whitefly and the carpenter ants,my garden is teeming with pests.Crotons go from no scale on monday to completely covered by the weekend.
Visiting other gardens I am noticing the same thing.I am starting to get a little tired of spending a couple hours every weekend looking for the little vampires
The merit works but does not last as long as it used to My coconut trees are now covered in whitefly.I treated them with Merit but I have gone thru 2 (30lb) bags already this summer and we still have many months to go.

 

Mike - we could argue forever on the impact of weather and some pests. Of greater impact is the introduction of new pests, e.g
1. The croton scale - totally new species.
2. Red palm mites - another recent introduction to Florida and just discovered last week here in Pinellas Cty at Kopsick Palm Arboretum.
3. Texas Phoenix Palm Decline - another new mycoplasma with a yet unidentified vector insect.

A search of the IFAS Pest Alerts would show even more new pests. The old ones were bad enough. And it always takes time for any natural predator to catch up with the new invaders - if a natural predator exists. New pests and diseases generally do their most damage in virgin populations which have no resistance and/or no natural predators. Lots of work out there for anyone looking for some doctoral disertation or postdoc work...

 

Lubber grasshoppers are running rampant this year.

 

Mike,

Have patience. In Ron's previous thread, he mentioned this large mealybug that's now feeding on the croton scale. I'm hoping by summer's end, I'll start to see a real reduction in scale.

I use the merit, and get approx. 6-7 months easily when I treat my crotons in the ground. In pots, longer.