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Hi all - thanks for taking the time to look at this post. Hopefully you guys can help me find a solution for the issue I am having with a number of my ornamental plants. Essentially I think I have two types of problems going on with my cacti. 1# Scale bugs and #2 - Mites. Please see attached images. (Thousand words). #1 Scale #2 Mites?? (Patient Zero?) As you can see, it's a cactastrophy. I have left it for a few years, hoping that the problem would go away - but now it has shifted into the next gear and I'm worried that I might lose my entire collection. These plants have never been treated with any form of insecticide, and I hesitated to do that for obvious reasons, but now I'm prepared to pull out the big guns if need be, use systemics etc, and even cull / sell infected stock to any interested buyers. These guys have been a part of my life, and I feel like I have let them down. If possible I would really like to rescue this collection and keep the genetics for the long haul. Help please! Kind regards, tedzr

I've got few P.nexus that have just come out of winter and they look OK considering how many times they froze, but they went into a dormant state and the insects gained the upper hand. During I autumn I noticed the scale which seems to be an armoured type of black scale which I've never struck before. I made several attempts to remove them all by hand, which I thought I did a fair job at doing but they scale has persisted over winter and flourished. I think removing the visible ones just got rid of the adult stage and the plants still had juvenile scale crawling all over them. Now it's warming up a bit the sap is starting to rise and the plants are showing new buds and look like they are going kick in again. I'm thinking of a rather brutal treatment method where I'll remove most of the leaves, so I'm wondering if anyone has given a nexus a really severe pruning and how did it respond. The plants seem to be dropping a lot of last years growth so I'm hoping it won't affect them too much. After the fleecing I'll probably hit them with some white oil or a vegetable oil/detergent mix and try to keep on top of the problem. Has anyone else had any scale issues with their Psychotrias and how did you manage it if you did?

Today I noticed two Knuthianus cuttings had scale. I've had them for nearly five months & both came from the same seller, could they have had scale all along; or is it more likely they've been attacked recently? (the cuttings were moved to a more sunny location in the last month, I'm pretty sure stress triggered the attack; just not sure if the scale was there all along). So far I've quarantined the cuttings & given them a good ol scrub down. They appear scale free for the moment, but I don't think I'm out of the woods yet. Looks like I'll be paying close attention to my collection for the next few weeks & hopefully with enough repeated toothbrush action I won't need to resort to spraying...