Are these scales?

General Fruit Growing
1

I’m a novice here so if this question is off base please ignore it. But I got around to planting my Nankings from Raintree and noticed these weird white things on the stems of the bush. Are these scales? If so should I be ticked off and should I contact raintree? I’m not real happy about having a potential pest introduced into my new mini orchard from a mail order company.

If they are indeed scales what do I need to do to take care of it? I bought some dormant oil the other day but I haven’t used it yet.

What are your thoughts?

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Hopefully it’s just some kind of calcium crud but I wanted an experts opinion

2

They look like scale to me. Do they squish? I’ve never had to spray, I wipe them off with a wet cloth.

3

Hard to tell but probably not. Mash, wipe off, and spray dormant oil.

They show up here everytime I turn around. Your area is probably the same.

4

I don’t recall any cottony material exuded by scale- have you looked at them under magnification?

5

The white things are not soft like cotton. They are hard. I tried scrapping some off and it pulls off some bark with it. In all honesty, these nankings almost look dead to me. The shoots just look brown and dried out with no signs of life. The roots looked okay so maybe they will sprout more shoots. We’ll see in a few weeks.

6

Unfortunately it is probably fungus that came when tree died.

7

Should I contact raintree for replacements now or should I wait to see if they somehow leaf out?

8

Move now if the tree easily snaps and is dead. It won’t easily snap if it’s alive.

9

The trees are about 2-3 feet tall and very thin. The top 12-16" snaps and breaks easily. The base near the root seems a little healthier.

10

If there are vital buds below then you may not need a replacement. Contact Raintree if nothing shows signs of growth by mid-May. You will need to wait a year to replace it.

11

I don’t know what it is, but I cannot imagine any sort of fungus that would quickly create hard deposits like you describe and as in your picture. I’ve never experienced scale issues, but I did find this description.

San Jose scale and white peach scale appear as white- to gray-colored bumps on the branches of cherry trees. These annoying pests insert their long, slender mouth parts into the cherry tree and suck the phloem sap. They can overwinter on the cherry tree and re-infest the tree in the spring. Severe infestations can result in discolored foliage, slow growth and tree decline. Beneficial predatory insects – parasitic flies, ladybugs, parasitic wasps and lacewings – are the ideal solution to control scales since there are no chemicals to disrupt the life cycle of beneficial insects. Applying horticultural oil to the cherry tree in its dormant period will control any overwintering scales hiding on the tree.