Pacific Pests, Pathogens and Weeds - Online edition

Pacific Pests, Pathogens & Weeds

Cassava white peach scale (052)


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Summary

  • Worldwide distribution. On bele, chilli, capsicum, cassava, passionfruit, and paper mulberry (Broussonetia sp.). An important pest.
  • Scale with tube-like mouthparts sucking sap from stems. Covered by a protective shell, the 'armour': round in females, white and long in males.
  • Eggs hatch as 'crawlers' that walk or are spread by wind. Both sexes settle down, feed and produce the armour, but males become winged, tiny, mosquito-like insects without mouths that mate and then die.
  • Natural enemies: many predators, and parasitoid wasps.
  • Cultural control: scale-free cuttings; avoid planting near old crop; collect and burn infested stems during growth and after harvest. 
  • Chemical control: use soap, white or horticultural oils with or without malathion. Malathion likely to kill natural enemies.

Common Name

White peach scale; also known as the mulberry scale

Scientific Name

Pseudaulacaspis pentagona


AUTHORS Helen Tsatsia & Grahame Jackson
Information from Waterhouse DF, Norris KR (1987) Pseudaulacaspis pentagona (Targioni-Torzzetti). Biological Control Pacific Prospects. Inkata Press. Assistance. Photos 2&4 Graham Teakle, Canberra; and CABI (2020) Pseudaulacaspis pentagona (mulberry scale). (https://www.cabi.org/cpc/datasheet/45077); Branscome D (2019) Pseudaulacaspis pentagona (Targioni). Featured Creatures, Entomology & Nematology. UF/IFAS, University of Florida. (http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/orn/scales/white_peach_scale.htm).

Produced with support from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research under project PC/2010/090: Strengthening integrated crop management research in the Pacific Islands in support of sustainable intensification of high-value crop production, implemented by the University of Queensland and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

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