Japanese magnolia (Magnolia x soulangiana), or saucer magnolia, is an early-blooming tree ideal for developing in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant-hardiness zones 2 through 10. These slow-growing trees have low-slung branches and usually increase as wide as they’re tall, creating huge, cup shaped blooms. More than 40 types are available, in the diminutive “Lilliputian,” which grows 10 to 15 feet tall and broad, to the 30-foot-tall “Big Pink,” which creates large flowers. Although usually trouble free magnolias can experience from a number of pests that are damaging.
Scale Bugs
Delicate scales and armored participate in to 2 different insect households, but equally can make nuisances of themselves in the backyard. California red scale, San Jose scale, oystershell scale and euonymus scale are all enemies of Japanese magnolias, in line with the University of California Integrated Pest Management Plan web site (IPM On The Web). Armored scales develop themselves a waxy-looking protect. Scales feast upon the soft tissues of the leaves and are greater. They excrete honeydew, which perfect for developing sooty mould, a fungal illness that is ugly; ants are also attracted by honey dew. Horticultural oil or insecticidal soap sprayed on the foliage of the tree will smother and kill scale insects. Fungicide and Ant killer can offer together with the side effects of honeydew deposits. When their populations are tiny scale can be knocked by a hard spray from a hose off the tree.
Aphids
Aphids are small pests that suck fluids from magnolia stems, leaves and twigs. Aphids are pear shaped and have two tubes (cornicles) projecting outward from their hind ends, like exhaust pipes, and exude copious quantities of honey dew. Infestations cause leaf distortion and curl, and stunt the development of new shoots. Aphids stay active year-around in locations that are central. Fly, lady beetles, lacewing and parasitic wasps prey on aphids and will keep populations that are tiny . Oil and insecticidal soap should completely protect both bottom and the top of the leaves of the tree. Permethrin malathion and acephate formulations offer some control, but these items also destroy beneficial insects.
Mealybugs
Mealybugs are small insects that collect in huge numbers. Masses of mealybugs type obvious, cottony while the person is difficult to see with no magnifying glass -seeking colonies. Infestations certainly will cause leaf and twig die-back and interfere with all the development of the magnolia. The bugs excrete honey dew and transfer gradually. Helpful bugs for example wasps and Cryptolaemus montrouzieri, nick-named the mealy bug destroyer may control large mealy bug populations. Systemic pesticides are more efficient in managing mealybugs while pesticides used to the surfaces of the tree might assist.
Ground Squirrels
The California floor squirrel (Spermophilus beecheyi) is typical through the entire state. Ground squirrels gnaw on bark, dig burrows across the tree roots, and consume twigs and foliage. Japan magnolia might die in the event the squirrel eliminates a strip of bark across the trunk, called girdling. Unlike tree squirrels, floor squirrels are non-sport animals and might be managed with fumigation poisons and traps. It’s illegal to re-lease them else where without an allow, in accordance with IPM Online and to to recapture these pests alive.
Prevention
Goodhealth enables the tree to withstand and re-cover completely from several sorts of infestation while trees can’t repel insect or animal pests. Keep the location throughout the bottom of the magnolia tree that is Japanese free of weeds and turfgrass where insects may possibly conceal and breed. Keep the tree correctly watered, pruned and fertilized. Some insects proliferate when also much nitro Gen-abundant fertilizer is used.