Abamectin is the main ingredient of Minx2. I do not know if it is labeled for figs esp. fig trees that have figs on them.
Re-entry Interval for Abamectin is 12 hours. The Pre-Harvest Interval is something to think about. For apples and pears, it is 28 days and 21 days for plums. Like I said I don’t know if Minx2 is labeled for figs and what is REI and PHI for figs.
Spinosad, depending on the brand, it can be 0 PHI (GF-120 NF) or 7 days PHI (Entrust) on common fruit such as apples, pears, plums, etc. I have no data on figs.
@hoosierbanana
So it will be ok to cut down now it’s been in ground for couple of months then? I will have to find spinosad this weekend trees don’t have figs on them yet only my Olympian has 6 figs in ground a year. That’s about 100 ft away with about 6 apples between them.
I meant I’ll try a local source before ordering anything so I can have it in hand and can spray that immediately.
With that much distance between trees it probably isn’t much of a risk as long as you are careful to not spread them on your hands or clothes. There is always a chance that a bird or some other animal could transfer them, and they can be transferred by wind, but that seems like a small risk for 50 ft, especially if you are spraying.
Here is a rooted cutting I started this winter. Now all the new growth has been green and healthy. Most of the early infected leaves have fallen off. I’m going to wait and see.
Here is my granthams royal. It looks better than it did but I’ve been giving it fertilizer up until a week ago. It’s grown about 6 inches since planting
That definitely looks like mite damage. I had a tree come in the mail like that, and sprayed it down. All the new foliage looked great with no spots or discoloration.
I’m not so sure about that. All I know is I now have a healthier looking tree. Don’t get me wrong. Some of my trees always show some FMV on some branches, but they aren’t being ravaged by it or by mites.
The reason I asked is that, the plant I showed above is in the same situation as yours. It was a cutting from California. The first 3-4 sets of leaves all show FMV symptoms. But new growth has been very healthy. Now most of the original leaves fell off. If I do not tell anyone, folks would not even be able to tell. There are still question I’d like to know.
Are mites present? Or it is just FMV in the plant tissues
Now the infested leaves are gone. Do the mites still live? Or FMV strain is still inside?
How long the FMV can stay inside this plant?
During the dormant season certainly I can cut off both branches and let the plant grow new shoots from the roots. Not sure that entirely removes FMV from this plant…
IME, a plant that has obvious FMV symptoms when young will probably always show symptoms at one time or another. Hard pruning encourages vigorous growth, which reduces symptoms.
FMV has a very distinct look. When figs are stressed they look blotchy. Calcium deficiency is a common cause. Like on my seedling. Heavy acid rain this past month leeched and tied up all the calcium. Besides the wetness that damaged and limited the roots nutritional uptake. Mites will cause physical damage to leaf and stem so again fairly easy to spot. They will kill young plants as the damage can be severe.
As far as academic info I like what LSU and UCD have to say. I would not rely on any info posted here including my own. One must do their own homework.
Having said that the info from our universities is rather general and not exactly correct always.
Plants with FMV will not survive long. Most of the infections are actually other viruses. We should be calling it FMD or fig mosaic disease. 12 viruses and 3 viroids cause these diseases.
If I’m incorrect about my seedling and it has FMD it is most likely caused by the fig cryptic virus or the fig latent virus. As both are transmitted to seed.
I was paid to isolate human pathogens so I have access to many medical resources which one would have to pay for access. Why I don’t provide links. You have to be a member and log in. Many of the resources cover animal and plant diseases too. Here is a free resource that goes over FMD but it is mostly about how a lab tech would isolate these viruses. What I did with human pathogens. So not sure how valuable this article would be to growers? https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/PDIS-06-20-1352-FE
One way to tell if your plant has FMV is your fruits will have the mosaic pattern too. If they do not you may have one of the other 14 viruses instead. As far as I know the mite can only transmit actual FMV and none of the others. But I’m not positive on that.
I have spent a lot of time responding to you, not just recently, but since you started growing figs. So I know that paragraph contains polar opposite opinions to what you have previously posted.
I don’t think you will find much support on ourfigs for the idea that FMV is inevitable death to a plant. But I don’t expect you will ever post that there.
If you want help Drew, there are other people who you may trust more than me or anyone else here who have tackled fig bud mites. Although fig bud mites are still controversial on ourfigs, there certainly are high profile members who have acknowledged and tackled their fig bud mite problem, they just don’t get involved publicly.
Fig bud mites were confirmed and documented, but had the figtator only listened to the people telling him it was too much water or a calcium deficiency it would have only delayed action.
What bothers me is that, a lot of figgers have figs infested with FMV. But most of them state that FMV is no big problem. Not sure if they truly believe this themselves, or they afraid the FMV will just destroy their fig trading business. Not sure.
The result is that, a lot people do not attempt to contain FMV and they trade cuttings and plants with FMV present. Then FMV gets transmitted further and further. The most traded fig varieties get the more severe FMV.
I would not rely on the microscope alone. Until there is a serious infestation spotting individuals is very difficult, or impossible. Those images look to be at least 100x magnification, which will have a very narrow focal length, and tiny viewing area. It is not possible to look over even a small plant entirely. The newest leaves, which are a preferred habitat, in particular are difficult to spot mites on because the trichomes are very dense.
Their reproduction rate is tied with temperature, so the best time to see them would be summer, but by then they could have easily spread and you will have a much harder task of dealing with them at that point.
