trees finally thriving - I think

[brian]

After years of container culture, occasionally forgetting to water, soil drainage issues, endless scale infestations, etc. I think my trees are finally happy. The new growth already has new growth. Even after the most recent issues with spider mites and sunburn I think the trees will brush it right off and resume growing rapidly. Spraying water regularly has helped a ton with the spider mites, my fogging system is keeping temperatures under control, and I haven't had any draining problems yet with my clay soil - because I can control how much water they get.

[Laaz]

I have found that when spider mites pop up, I use a bottle of Bayer advance in one of those bottles you hook to the hose & spray the infested trees as long as they are not in bloom. Works like a charm.

[Laaz]

[Sylvain]

You can control spider mites without chemicals (or nearly).
Spray
- Only water, twice a day for many days
or
- water with few drops of  washing up liquid, once a day for few days
or
- water with horticultural oil, once or twice if needed

[toofarnorth]

Yeah, I agree, wash, rinse, repeat.  I finally learned you have to be persistent for a few days to knock them down.  I notice most people have problems with new growth, and so do I with the little white ones, but the red ones seem to like the bigger, older leaves.  My Moro is a mite magnet. They seem to love Dekopon also.

TFN

[brian]

I've mostly gotten rid of the spider mights by repeatedly spraying all my trees with hose stream at dusk as Millet suggested. I also have tanglefoot on all the trunks so hopefully that prevents them crawling back. I also ordered some Spinosad I will use if they return after this.

However... those sprayers... let's talk about those. I have tried extensively to get hose-end sprayers to work and they never do for me. At least, they do not work with hort oil or plain soap. The concentrate is never picked up and it just sprays water, or it works briefly and then stops picking up. During adjustment tests I ended up killing my guava tree by soaking it with too much hort oil.

I have tried that exact sprayer you posted, Laaz, I believe it is called 'Chameleon', and also a Chapin sprayer, plus multiple re-used plastic disposable sprayer bottles (Bayer stuff usually). Nothing works anything close to reliably, and I ended up going back to my super-reliable Echo pump sprayer.

[toofarnorth]

I have one of the miracle grow ones that I plan to try.  My backpack sprayer doesn't seem to keep it agitated well enough when using oil.

TFN

[brian]

My in-ground greenhouse trees are putting out buckets of new growth. The damage doesn't seem to have fazed them all. Very soon they will be taller than I am

[millet]

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Good things come to those who wait.

[loneroc1]

Howdy,

Mites are pretty effectively dealt with by frequent foliage washing and horticultural oil.

Things have become even simpler after I introduced half a dozen different predatory mite species to my greenhouse two years ago.

At this point my only regular pest trouble is with scale (and ants, they go hand in hand). A perfect remedy for scale (and I don't throw "perfect" loosely) is Enstar. Try it, you'll like it! OK, you'll have to keep up with the ants though. They keep hauling scale up the trees. Steve H.