Pest pics?

General Fruit Growing
#1

Every locale has pests. We get plenty here, but I’ve never seen red spidermites swarm like this:

They look like devil horns on my tomatoes. Tomatoes are the fruit of the plant, right? :tomato:

What pests do you get and can you post some pictures?

Spider mite infestation on tomatoes
#2

That’s a wild looking photo Mr. Clint.

I have a couple photos I’ll add. Most people think of pests as insect pests, but pests can encompass any organism which harms or destroys crops (which would include weeds and diseases). Below is a couple photos I took yesterday of some of the worst canker in my peach orchard.

I’m glad peach trees can’t feel pain :grimacing:

#3

Loving this thread! We have almost no disease or pest pressures here in the dry dry deserts of Arizona. But ocassionally something surfaces and no one knows what they are because its so uncommon here. So being able to see pictures of actual cases helps a ton. :slight_smile: We had some canker surface on California grown cherrys that we have brought in. Took me forever to identify what exactly it was because its virtually unknown here.

#4

Are you sure they can’t feel pain Olpea?

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#5

Well, if they can then, the question becomes how do I make them feel happy? :smile:

#6

You could always sing to them…lol

#7

Olpea, will that eventually kill the tree?

#8

Well I do play music on my phone while working in the orchard, does that count? :smile:

Rob, that second pic is pretty bad canker. I doubt the tree will heal from that, so I will probably have to lop off that scaffold eventually.

I’ve had canker that bad before and the scaffolds will continue producing fruit for a lot of years. Eventually the wood rots so bad the scaffold gets too weak and must be removed.

#9

Rob might have been referring to your singing to the trees.

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#10

You’ve got scorpions, dude! :scorpius:

Olpea, thanks for sharing your pics. I see a lot of banter about canker, but these pics really drive home the impact.

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#11

Haaahaaa actually some of the worst pests we have are Californians. :sunny:

#12

Ha! That’s even funnier.

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#13

Hey, now. :palm_tree: :cactus:

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#14

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Black Knot on my Stanley plum tree. I am going to prune out and destroy the few knots I have as soon as the weather improves here in the northeast.

#15

That is a large black knot gall!

Scorpions, Californians, and TARANTULAS! :bug:

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#16

Interesting! I have had galls like that on plums and assumed that they were bacterial canker. What causes galls like that?

#17

Black Knot is caused by a fungus. Apparently the knot will release spores in the spring under the right conditions (temperature above 55F and rainy). It is important to remove and destroy the knots by burial or burning before bud break. Also gathering from what I have read somewhere online, removal of hedgerow and other nearby trees with visible knots is beneficial.

#18

I was pruning and came across this tree, worst canker in the orchard. I remembered I took a pic a few years ago and posted it on the forum.

Thought I’d post an update. Sometimes it seems there is a lot of fear of canker, but it’s not been a big deal here. The infected scaffold will eventually rot and break off. Although it might even close up and heal (kind of borderline to me). When that happens, I just saw it off. In the mean time, I’ve harvested a lot of peaches off the infected scaffold. Based on my experience, the scaffold will continue to produce lots of peaches before it rots through, if it does at all.

This is a pic of the same tree of the second picture I posted above 2-1/2 years ago.

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