Monday, March 2, 2009

Mystery eggs on orange tree


If anyone has ever seen these white tiny eggs on top of their citrus leaves and knows what this is would you let me know?

I looked this up in all my bug books, on line, etc...but no luck. Most of the stuff I find in my books is stuff under the leaves not on top. Odd.

Anyway, I want to be sure that in my ignorance I am not disposing of good bugs. Thanks!

***Update***Rhizo from GardenWeb helped identify these suckers (literally)...the eggs are Fern Scale eggs...who'd have thunk it, eh? Doing a quick Fern Scale eggs Google search will give you more details (I have frozen food in the trunk of my car now so I must go! :-) Thanks Rhizo!!!

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8 comments:

Unknown said...

I just read that white flies will lay eggs on top and bottom of leaves, this is the only thing I could find. I guess when they hatch and you move the leaves you'll see them fly off if that's what they are.

HelloPame said...

Hey there Darla, thanks for looking it up...I thought that's what it could be too and it was the first thing I looked up.

A few things that make me think these are not whitefly eggs is their shape (whitefly eggs are spindle like, mine are round), the weather pattern (most whitefly eggs are found during the hotter months or the year, mine are always occurring when it is cold), whitefly eggs stand vertically on leaves (mine are laying down), whitefly eggs are laid on an irregular pattern most times (mine are always in some sort of a circle or oval shape)...and the last thing is that the University of Florida Extension page for soft bodied citrus pest id never mentions that whitefly eggs can be found on top of leaves...but you certainly can be right and this could be an odd case of confused whiteflies ☺

At any rate, my gut tells me it is something else...but either way I will post the results when I find out...and thanks so much again for looking it up, that was nice of you ☺

kesslerdee said...

Hmmm- I'll have to go examine my citrus but I don't think I've ever seen anything like those.

HelloPame said...

I know, I have never ever seen those before...they started showing up this winter for me. And, trust me, they are not hidden away from view and predators, they are real easy to spot.

Unknown said...

Someone somewhere knows the answer to this.........where the heck are they? You have me checking my citrus trees too!

HelloPame said...

Darla, check out the update that I posted early yesterday...

Kara said...

Hello, Gardening Fool!

I am a bit Southeast of you here in Palm City with a horrible problem on my citrus tree. I dropped a specimen off at the local UF Extension Office, but I thought I'd ask your opinion as well. Would you take a look at the pictures on my page (blog title "WHAT?!?")and let me know if you have any ideas?

Thanks, and I enjoyed your photos! What kind of camera are you using? The photos are so beautifully detailed!

HelloPame said...

Hi Kara,

Already posted my suggestions for your citrus issues in your blog. Hate it when plants go psycho on us!

Thanks for the nice comments! My camera is a Canon 10XPowershot, it is under $300. One day I'd love to graduate to a bigger zoom, but for now I love it, it is little and has a bunch of functions but is still pretty intuitive to use. I had to get this camera not long ago because I broke my other one...the best price I found was at BJs. Also, I use Picasa to save the pics and to post them in my blog.

Let me know if you need anything else...

I'll check your blog again to find out what is wrong with your citrus tree.