Source: AgriLife Today
A new video by a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service urban entomologist gives viewers step-by-step instructions on treating trees for crapemyrtle bark scale, or CMBS.
“Maybe its worst feature is that it produces a sugary excrement that makes the leaves sticky,” said Dr. Mike Merchant in Dallas about the pest. “It turns the beautiful honey-colored trunks of crapemyrtle into black sticks and also appears to reduce blooms and weaken some trees.”
Discovered in North Texas in 2004, CMBS is relatively new to gardeners in the southern U.S., Merchant said. It is a small, white, sap-feeding insect that lives on the bark of crapemyrtle trees.
He encourages Texas gardeners encountering CMBS for the first time to take a picture and submit it at https://www.eddmaps.org/ — a web-based mapping system for documenting invasive species distribution.
Information on controlling a range of insect pests, including CMBS, is available at Merchant’s website https://citybugs.tamu.edu and by contacting him at m-merchant@tamu.edu.
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