Richard

Today I received a copy of Integrated Pest Management for Citrus, 3rd Ed. from UC ANR.

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Kat2

Read it and report back. So far I've seen aphids here; I know greening is a potential issue along with a few other problems. I am a firm believer in beneficial insects; finding the perfect prey for a new pest is sometimes difficult I know.

I had an army of praying mantis who nested in my jasmine then hatched in the spring after which I never saw them again until mating season but they wiped out all bad and good bugs when I lived in MD. (No hummingbirds or ladybugs in my garden.) Tyrannosaurus Rex of the insect world? Yes, indeed.

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Richard

The $40 cover price is well worth it.

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Kat2

I can rescue a lot of $1 clearance "2 or 6 in a pot" plants for that price and have quite successfully so I'll continue to spend my pittance very carefully just now. I've done a lot of reading on the Net so I know what my little pink lemon and I am facing. Scary. Beyond scary. Personally I think it's just a matter of time before the bad stuff infects all dooryard citrus in FL regardless of how careful people are raising them. Sad.

I'm going to try artichokes this fall...did it in MD and it worked...need a spare fridge turned down low to store roots during the hot months but doable I think. Maybe not...

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bananimal

This will be my first year growing citrus. Have a Page tangelo and a Persian lime. Both grafted. Will see how the pest issue works out.

Planning to plant the lime in ground and the Page in a container with a soil less mix.

Richard

Based on many of your posts, I believe that if you understood what the State of CA means by the phrase "integrated pest management" you would skip a few meals in order to buy this book.

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sunfish

Kat2

Every state I've lived in had an IPM program; I have read and studied them all. Apparently I guess I haven't made myself clear. I'm cheap, lazy and totally into good bugs eating the bad ones. (Though sometimes the good ones are a bit too good as were my uninvited praying mantis swarms whose nests I nearly eradicated because I destroyed nests thinking they were mud dobbers; once I left them alone I never saw another ladybug.).

Once I figured out, long before the Net, that the Tyrannosaurus guests who chose my totally herbicide free spot in a tiny city lot on a busy road on which to live, I pruned my jasmine, in fall, around them.

Saw them as hatchlings in the spring and mating in the fall but otherwise they were invisible.

I am a firm believer in letting Nature take her course and have sacrificed several years of crops waiting for her to balance out things. (I even, at the insistence of Mr. Cocoa, let weeds grow in the Ohio garden as a trap to attract nasties for 2 years and it worked.so I'm no longer totally anti "weed". )

I spray with chemicals when nothing else works. I admit to using MG (generic) in FL because the soil where I live just now is not healthy. (Don't tell me sand sucks compost down in a month--it doesn't--you do have to amend annually or even biannually but this isn't my garden so I do what I can to make it natural then resort to other means.)

And I have sprayed with bug b gone given to me by the owner of a citrus tree that has one very healthy branch on it and the rest are gray AFTER blooming and setting just 1 orange to get rid of aphids; I was too late to do anything "cheap" or homemade when I discovered the issue so I did what I could to protect the tree. I have also placed HER fertilizer around HER tree; if it were mine, I would seek something CHEAPER AND MORE MORE NATURAL with which to feed it but it's really very, very hungry and I do want this to live and perhaps produce 15 oranges next year.

Tell me what more I should do?

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Richard

That's what the UC ANR book is all about.

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Kat2

Um, okay. I think I've got it figured out but, if not, I'll wing it since you don't plan to post any "secrets". I stopped buying books 15+ years ago because I don't have space for them in my forced moves. I have a few very pretty ancient gardening books from my grandmother and probably 3 to 6 that my late mother gave to me along with some treasured cookbooks and some photocopied fig writings (worthless) that I can't part with but otherwise I don't do books. The single, large box I have is quite heavy and sometimes I try to shed some of the weight but I don't. However, I won't add more bulk at my age. I earned a degree in history before my one in business so I'm a pretty good "Net" searcher (so much easier than using the library) so I'm content with what I learn electronically because my life is not a thesis but my life. Bonjoiur? Sick of that reply from naysayers but I tend to pay attention to .edu sources unless a lot of people seem to have success with one of my theories. I don't claim to be a scientist but sometimes stupid ideas work in practice and I'm really good at searching out stupid ideas.

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merce3

for florida-specific citrus growers there are a bunch of ipm articles available through the uf extension. not neatly organized like you would get in a book, but a good resource nonetheless. it's taxpayer funded anyway, so you're already paying for the research in a sense

https://www.google.com/#q=site:ifas.ufl.edu+ipm+citrus

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Richard

I have had several motivations for purchasing this text. One is better controls of nuisance pests in my relatively new environment. Another was to determine the cause of recurrent chlorosis-like symptoms in my Citrus and a few of my neo-tropical plants. A careful reading of the text and examination of the photos led me to believe there is a problem with a specific soil bacteria in my area. To control it, I have added Copper Hydroxide (Dupont Kocide 3000) at a rate of 18 grams (2 tablespoons) per 1500 gallons of irrigation water. This is essentially a maintenance dosage according to the product label. Anyway, the Citrus have responded favorably to this so I'm hoping to have turned the corner on the problem.

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Kat2

Yeah, well, my only citrus and very beloved pink lemon suddenly has developed leaf droop. I assumed she was watered well but perhaps not so I have flooded her pot. If she doesn't perk up, I'll hope that changing out her dirt to put her in a larger pot and investigating her roots for rot (trimming what isn't pretty--like I know root rot?) will solve the problem. I was planning to try cuttings from her for ME only but am still playing with some lesser citrus twigs since I'm not really set up to do it right (figsticks I am trying here aren't rooting but the ones I set up at a friend's house are going nuts--haven't lost my "touch" but here I can't get yeast to work either). And I'm thinking that somehow she's gotten some kind of disease and is dying...darn, darn, darn!

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Richard

Merce3 has posted a very helpful link to the Florida IPM site:

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Kat2

I noted his link; I have tried to read up on the issues here but will, when my life settles a bit, take a good hard look.

Thus far water didn't perk up my precious lemon; I don't know what happened in the past 2 days but it appears I'm losing her. And that makes me cry. She has 2 fruits on her now but I doubt they'll ripen.

So sad; very sad.

I keep seeing grey branches on established citrus here which truly discourages me. The probable fate of my precious baby makes me even more disconsolate. To think there was a hardy "citrus" that grew in MD (zone 7ish) with no issues except it was too tart/bitter to enjoy but had no issues. So I move to FL where citrus are abundant yet won't be much longer IMO.

So sad; very sad.

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Abnshrek

Don't feel bad Kat my Lemon isn't doing much right now either.. but I'm going to take a page out from my grapefruit that is doing really well, so I'm going to water in a cup of kelp and see if it has the same effect.. :^)

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I'm a Nannerhead :^)

Richard

How about a couple of pictures - one of the tree and another close up of a few leaves.

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