Grape mealybug

Grape and obscure mealybugs lay yellow to orange eggs within an egg sac; longtailed mealybugs give birth to live crawlers. Crawlers of all three species are yellow to orange-brown in color. The grape mealybug has two generations each year and overwinters as an egg or crawler in or near a white, cottony egg sac under loose bark and in the cordons or upper portions of the trunk. In spring most grape mealybug crawlers move toward the base of spurs, or under the loose bark of canes, and then onto expanding green shoots, reaching maturity in mid-May to early June. Most females return to old wood to lay eggs that hatch from mid-June to July. First generation crawlers then move out to the green portions of the vine to feed on fruit and foliage in late June or early July; mostly immatures are seen through July. Adult females will appear in late summer and early fall. Some females will oviposit in the fruit clusters but the majority of the females return to the old wood to lay the overwintering eggs.

Obscure and longtailed mealybugs do not diapause over the winter and have multiple overlapping generations with all life stages present on the vines year round. Obscure mealybug overwinters under the bark of the trunk, cordons, and spurs (the same as grape mealybug). In late spring some obscure mealybugs begin to feed on leaves, but the majority of the population remains hidden under the bark or in the tight clusters.