The brown soft scale insect is generally found on the trunk,
foliage, and, sometimes, the fruit. It looks like small crusty,
waxy, or smooth bumps about a ¼ inch or smaller in size. Several
of the bumps can be clustered together making the scale look
larger. The leaves of infested trees yellow and often drop, and
a shiny sticky substance can coat the leaves. The presence of
soft brown scale can also cause black sooty mold to grow on the
sticky (honeydew) substance. The scale insects harm the tree by
constantly sucking sap from the tree’s vascular system, thus
placing stress on the tree and reducing its natural growth and
fruit production cycles. Scale insects over-winter on the trunk
and twigs of the tree and do not move throughout their lifecycle
once they are established. In the spring or early summer,
juvenile nymphs emerge and slowly move to other areas of the
tree. This movement in the nymph stage is the only time that
they are mobile during their lives, it is also the time that
they are most vulnerable