Orchids pests/disease
 

Silken

Thanks for the tip. It took me almost 1 hr to find the path, but I finally got it.

Here are the photos of the brown bumps which most of you speculated were scales. Is this the case?

Thanks again for everybody's help!

Yes, that is a severe infestation of scale. You will need to treat this plant and everything within crawling distance (and they can crawl pretty far...). Get rid of visible bugs with rubbing alcohol, and consider treating with imidacloprid, a systemic pesticide found in some Bayer products. Please read the label. Good luck!

Yes, unfortunately that is scale, and I agree, quite a bad infestation. Anything that came in new as far as plants go, I would isolate in case they weren't yet infected. Then you have a job ahead of you. Wiping those flat leaves with a cloth or pad of alcohol will be a good start as they are so out there and obvious!
But scale gets down into crevices where you can't see them too. I agree with phalaephila that you should get some , imadocloprid systemic. Bayer rose and shrub I believe or Merit is another brand. But in the meantime start removing the ones you can find.

Yuck! That is pretty bad. I've never had them on my orchids but had them once on other houseplants like peace lily. Peace lily being quite common plant to obtain, I ended up tossing one badly infested one out in fear of other plants getting the bugs. It's just not worth keeping badly infested plant due to the risk of putting other plants in danger.

If it's not somthing very important to you, I would get rid of it. Or try and remove the badly infested leaves. I know it may sound rather harsh.

Or like other memebers suggested, remove them as much as you can. I remember they were not that easy to remove. I used my fingernails and old toothbrush to get them off and the ones hiding in those hard to reach areas of plants, I used toothpick or needle to scratch off.

The use some effective pesticide to keep them off for a while until you don't see them anymore.

hate bugs, but they need to eat and survive. meantime, leaving us some work to do. lol

Thanks
 

I see I have quite a task ahead.

Thank you all for the good advice!

Good luck! Scale can kill a plant so you'll want to get that under control as soon as you can. Keep us posted as to how things go. Most of us have had scale on our orchids at some time or another.

Scale infestation
 

I had tried insecticidal soap (w/ seaweed extract) prior to my posting and it seems to be working.

After a couple of applications, the scales can be easily removed w/ ur fingertips and w/o scraping them.

We'll see how it goes...:)

Yes, insecticidal soap would work even better if mixed with isopropyl alcohol. Unlike pesticide treatments though, alcohol and soap require persistence :)

I would hit that with systemic pesticide so fast and hard it would make their heads spin. Probably 3 doses, each two weeks apart.
Anything damages my orchids, I want it dead.

I'll apologize now, in case this sound rude, but why would you use kelp, a plant growth stimulant, while the thing is battling an infestation?.

Stimulants redirect resources within the plant, something they might otherwise use in their own defense of an infestation.