Andy, lots and lots of people post images to the forums. ;-) But if you like, you can email me your pictures, and I'll have a look-see.

So, tell us....do these 'things' move around or are they more like odd bumps that seem glued to the leaves, but that can be scraped off with your finger nail? Or, do they look like something else entirely. Without an image, we need more than 'things' to go by. ;-)

I will say this with some certainty: the sticky stuff is the excrement of a sucking insect of some kind. Scale insects, whitefly, aphids, mealybugs, and others suck plant sap 24/7, filtering it so that they keep the good stuff inside and excrete sugary water.

Knowing the identity of your pest is important in being able to control it.

I second rhizo's list. From your description, my money is on scale. If you google "citrus scale" you will find plenty of pictures to compare your situation to. Even if you have scale, since there a quite a few types of scale insects that infect citrus, you may have to browse around to find an exact match. Basically, the adults look like little limpets that are attached like suction cups usually to the green stems or leaves.

To post pics to this forum, you have to first post them to an on-line service like Flickr which will host them. Then you copy the link and paste it into the same window you compose your message in (and not the Optional Link URL or Name of the Link boxes). It is a bit tricky at first!

{{gwi:569665}}

Thanks for the responses! I've uploaded two pics of one leaf so that you can see both sides.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61967240@N04/5636628617/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61967240@N04/5636630541/in/photostream

What pest(s) do I have and what should I treat with pls?

Here is a link that might be useful: Pic 1

It is Scale insect. It took me hours to find this out and I used neem oil spray first then i took a soft tooth brush with mild dish soap and worked the insects off the stems.The main reason I believe that the sap is on the leaves and on the floor is the Trees instinct to save itself by attracting Ants to it so the Ants can eat the larvae and Insect.

I have this same problem and want to try one of the sprays but my orange is planted in the floor of my green house. Did you only talk about moving the plant out doors to avoid a mess or will there be a problem getting the spray on the dirt floor or other plants?

If you have a Greenhouse then I would order a container of Ladybugs and let them eat your problem.

Did that already. Turned 1500 loose two weeks ago in my greenhouse (36' X 26'. Two days later I started finding them dead on the leaves of the orange. I suspect the cause maybe some leftover insecticidal soap reside on the orange leaves which didn't seem to affect the scale. Sticky residue on the leaves is getting worse.

Spray with neem oil.

OK Marine I was a Navy Submarine Cook and I trained and cooked for you guys in the field.So either you are going to have to treat it with a Systematic Pesticide or your going to have to make their living conditions hell by changing to the opposite of what they are doing now. I have even seen using baking soda and water spray to change the Ph but you are getting close back off on the pesticides try to go natural a lot of times it is something stupid like a malnutrition of the tree that makes it weak.

Thanks to both of you. Went to Lowes yesterday and they didn't stock any product labeled as need oil and only one product labeled as a horticultural oil but it contained mineral oil as its primary. After some more reading, I Like the idea of need oil and intend to try it next along with some genial leaf scrubbing. Thanks again.

I actually rode on a sub once, USS Greyback. In the early 70s someone wanted to see what and how long it would take to minimally train a standard Marine rifle company to lock out and back in a sub for a raid. They only cheated a bit. They formed a rifle company with 1st class and WSSIs swimmer but no one scuba trained. Messed around a bit at Coronado training then sailed to Hawaii with some more training enroute and under way. Final exercise was a raid in the Pahocos Training area. Followed up with two day group drunk out while the heavies debriefed. Slept nearly all the way back to Coronado. Great food not a fan of hot racking.