White Stuff on Sago Palms - Garden Palm Scale

Many people have asked us recently about the "white stuff" on their Sago Palms. They say it looks like snow on the plant. It is most easily seen on the bottom of the fronds especially those closest to the ground. This is the cycad or aulacaspis scale(Aulacaspis yasumatsui). It is a very small insect, not a fungus as some people think. It is a relatively new pest of Sago palms in central Florida. It was accidentally brought into this country into Miami in the middle of the 1990's and has spread north to us ever since. The Sago Palm is really misnamed. It is not a palm at all but a type of plant called a cycad. It just looks like a palm. The insect is very specific to this and a small number of other cycads and will not spread to palms or other plants.
The little insect is not hard to kill, but if you see it there are a lot of them. At this time you can control the scale, but it is very difficult to eliminate it completely and permanently. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the scale gets on the trunk of the plant, the roots, and into the ground. It is hard to kill when it does this. The second reason is that your neighbors also probably have the scale and it will be blown back to your plant from theirs.

Polk County Extension, 1702 Highway 17-98 South, Bartow, FL 33830
Phone: (863) 519-8677
Serving the 17 municipalities of Auburndale, Bartow, Davenport, Dundee, Eagle Lake, Fort Meade, Frostproof, Haines City, Highland Park, Hillcrest Heights, Lake Alfred, Lake Hamilton, Lake Wales, Lakeland, Mulberry, Polk City, and Winter Haven, plus the 24 unincorporated areas.

Copyright 2006