Having (maybe) solved the lemon tree mystery, I can now turn my attention to this:
This is one of my pear trees. It looks like spider mites, but it could also be mosaic virus. This one is the most affected, but three out of four are not putting out new leaves. I flooded them last weekend and fertilized them with tomato product as well. In their case the flooding wasn't to clean the soil, though it's not a bad idea, but to rehydrate it. Since they've been dormant all winter, I haven't watered them much, and the soil dried to such an extent that it had formed hard clumps that wouldn't admit water. There is a reason, after all, why mud-brick construction is one of the three oldest building techniques in the world.
But back to my point, the soil wasn't really taking water anymore, it would simply run right through, leaving everything nearly as dry as before. So I put the planters in the kitchen sink and ran the water until the sink was nearly full. Even so, I had to dig through and through with a fork, break up the clumps, and mix the dry dirt with water by hand. After all that, the healthiest tree put out new leaves; the other three showed some light greenery, but none of it actually turned into leaves.
You can see on the second photo here that the one tree has been putting out a long, thick, light green stem with little growths on it; yet it still doesn't make leaves.
What you can also see, even though the focus is on the tree and not on the parasites, is those little white dots. When you see them with the naked eye, they're actually tiny creatures. I still think spider mites, since they make spider-like webs, but it could be thrips or aphids or who knows what. My balcony being out of reach of most vermin, I'm not versed in plant parasites. Yet.
I've rinsed this tree a couple of times, but they keep coming back, so then I remembered something else I think I've read about spider mites: they don't like humid conditions. So...
(011)
I made a cloche with a stake and a garbage bag, and now it's sitting in the bathroom, the warmest, humidest part of the house. Hopefully this will steam out the creatures. And hopefully the creatures are the cause of the weird growth and the mottled leaves, because if it's mosaic virus, I'll have to destroy all four trees. The fact that it hasn't spread to anything else in the house makes me optimistic, but you never know.
This is one of my pear trees. It looks like spider mites, but it could also be mosaic virus. This one is the most affected, but three out of four are not putting out new leaves. I flooded them last weekend and fertilized them with tomato product as well. In their case the flooding wasn't to clean the soil, though it's not a bad idea, but to rehydrate it. Since they've been dormant all winter, I haven't watered them much, and the soil dried to such an extent that it had formed hard clumps that wouldn't admit water. There is a reason, after all, why mud-brick construction is one of the three oldest building techniques in the world.
But back to my point, the soil wasn't really taking water anymore, it would simply run right through, leaving everything nearly as dry as before. So I put the planters in the kitchen sink and ran the water until the sink was nearly full. Even so, I had to dig through and through with a fork, break up the clumps, and mix the dry dirt with water by hand. After all that, the healthiest tree put out new leaves; the other three showed some light greenery, but none of it actually turned into leaves.
You can see on the second photo here that the one tree has been putting out a long, thick, light green stem with little growths on it; yet it still doesn't make leaves.
What you can also see, even though the focus is on the tree and not on the parasites, is those little white dots. When you see them with the naked eye, they're actually tiny creatures. I still think spider mites, since they make spider-like webs, but it could be thrips or aphids or who knows what. My balcony being out of reach of most vermin, I'm not versed in plant parasites. Yet.
I've rinsed this tree a couple of times, but they keep coming back, so then I remembered something else I think I've read about spider mites: they don't like humid conditions. So...
(011)
I made a cloche with a stake and a garbage bag, and now it's sitting in the bathroom, the warmest, humidest part of the house. Hopefully this will steam out the creatures. And hopefully the creatures are the cause of the weird growth and the mottled leaves, because if it's mosaic virus, I'll have to destroy all four trees. The fact that it hasn't spread to anything else in the house makes me optimistic, but you never know.
No comments:
Post a Comment