Whats eating my fig leaves? I have sprayed spinosad.
I had my tree for 4 years and 1 I planted this year is now starting to get damage however I never had this problem previous years. I had sprayed spinosad but there is new damage. Do you guys know?
I dont know.
Heres what I know.
We have had stink bugs
5 years ago in mass I saw them here before I planted my fig tree. That has died down substantially. I only saw 1 indoors the past 4 years including this year in which I saw 1.
We have a shade tree.
The shade tree has hundreds of lady bugs on them so I assume small pest are living there which cause the lady bugs to make this tree home.
The shade tree has small green worms
I have seen 1 hanging from the shade tree. I assume a variety of pest are living along with lady bugs, preying mantis and unfortunately birds which will result in me cutting it down. As this huge beautiful shade tree has not one hole in it from pest.
Sometimes in the spring argentine ants will farm aphids on my figs, the damage can be really varied. The aphids blend in pretty well if they are green, they will be on the undersides of the youngest leaves, ants will be going up and down the trunks.
The other thing is maybe slugs, check at night. Or maybe they got beat up from that wind last week.
good point. But im not seeing any Ants or Aphids. I had them the 1st year on the tree and use to destroy them every day with the water hose never seen them since. But I will check. Slugs I dont know about. Im gonna check on them in a few hours and see if I see anything. However I do understand I must check at night all the time.
Any broad spectrum sprays I can use to rid myself of these whatever they are?
It could just be latent damage showing up still, when the leaves get damaged young you can’t tell until they get bigger. I’ve never sprayed for anything besides fig bud mites, and unless you added new fig plants chances are it is not them.
I added a celeste a month ago. However damage is just showing on the new one, The older tree started showing damage soon as the leaves started to come out. I also added a olympia that has not leafed out. but has green wood and 3-4 very small plants. 1 has rust the other 2 didnt look so hot. green ischia, long yellow neck, violet d, I cant rember the other but they do not look great at all
they came in 4 inch pots. I will find the name if you wish to be sure to avoid the company.
Some of the leaves do look like fig bud mite damage, but it could just be from cold though. A month would actually be too soon to see damage also, fig bud mites don’t reach high levels until summer. If you want to know for sure you need a microscope since they are invisible to the naked eye. Since they are insidious and tough to deal with it is a good idea to quarantine all new fig plants and or treat them prophylactically with a miticide.
Just remembered one other pest people say bothers figs sometimes, thrips. They are small but should be visible if you look closely. I’ve never had a problem with them though.
Sounds like you got tissue culture plants, the sellers leave them in the flats too long and they get stressed out. They will probably rebound though, just be ready to pinch off suckers, they can end up weedy really quick.
