Scale insects & mealybugs

A group of small, sap-sucking insects that encrust the stems, stolons, crowns, and leaf sheaths of warm-season turf. Bermudagrass scale is a tiny (about 0.06 inch) white, clam-shaped armored scale attached to stolons and stems; rhodesgrass mealybug appears as round, dark-bodied insects hidden under conspicuous white, cottony, waxy tufts clustered at nodes and crowns of bermudagrass, St. Augustinegrass, and centipedegrass. Both are found by parting the canopy and inspecting runners and nodes.

Yellowing, thinning, and stunted, off-color patches as continuous sap removal from stolons and crowns weakens the stand; heavy infestations leave runners visibly crusted with white scale covers or cottony mealybug tufts, and affected turf declines and is slow to recover, especially under drought.

These are scale insects and mealybugs (Hemiptera) with multiple overlapping generations per year in warm climates. Mobile first-instar crawlers settle on the plant, then the females become largely sedentary — armored scales secrete a hard waxy cover, mealybugs a cottony secretion — and feed on phloem sap; males are tiny and short-lived. Reproduction continues through the warm season, and infestations build slowly in undisturbed, thatchy turf.

Infrequent but locally damaging pests favored by warm climates and the warmer regions of the South; populations concentrate on stressed, thatchy stands and spread slowly through runners, with injury most apparent during summer heat and drought when sap loss compounds water stress.