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Preventative spraying

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Nina
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Ricky Keaton
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Post  Ricky Keaton Sun Jul 18, 2010 10:14 pm

Do you spray at regular times to prevent pests and diseases?
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Post  Mike Jones Mon Jul 19, 2010 10:22 am

Yes, Provado for fly and mildew treatment in winter and at bud burst then 6 weekly thereafter. First year I do not have mildew since adopting this regime.

As for fly...none to be seen anywhere, Provado is amazing stuff.

Mike
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Post  Kev Bailey Mon Jul 19, 2010 2:42 pm

If you do use a preventative spray, please keep bees in mind and spray only in the late evening when they have all returned to hives. Provado is not selective in what it kills and the bees are having a hard enough time already.
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Post  JimLewis Mon Jul 19, 2010 3:17 pm

Insecticides work when there are insects present. Because of environmental concerns they are no longer persistent. Preventive spraying for insects is a waste -- of time, money, and probably any number of good insects that you don't notice because they're not hurting your trees but who perform a number of important services for us and for plants, such as pollination and controlling of insect pests. Any success you think you get from preventative spraying is illusory; if there were no insects chewing on your trees, there were none to kill but your tree is healthy -- anyway.

Please don't try preventative spraying for insects!

Preventative spraying can sometimes work for fungus infections if you do it at the proper time and use the proper fungicide. To do that you first have to clearly identify the fungus you are wanting to control. That takes time and experience. In the USA the county extension agent is your best friend. He or she can identify the fungus (or insect, if you catch one and take it in) and recommend the proper steps for control. There is an extension office for virtually every county in the United States. I don't know if other countries have similar agencies or not but you may be able to get similar help from agricultural colleges.

These things are all poisons. Indiscriminate use of them can be dangerous -- to you, your family, your pets, other plants in your garden or neighborhood and to the environment.
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Post  Nina Wed Jul 21, 2010 1:43 am

I hate to drag out my old, tired, dog-eared example, but one of the few insect problems I have is the pine tip moth. Do I spray my maples with a preventative insecticide because of this? No. The pine tip moth attacks pines. Do I spray all year long? No. The pine tip moth lays its eggs at a very specific time- a three-week period during summer. So, do I spray during that period? No. I put a fine netting over the pine to keep the moths off it.

Some fungal diseases can be anticipated, and a preventative spray can be helpful. I used to have something (I forget what) that got leaf spot of rose. While I simply removed infected leaves and controlled the problem that way, I also could have sprayed.

If you have a pest problem, learn about the pest. There are many good extension websites; all you need are moderate Google skills to find them. Once you know the enemy, the tools to combat it will be easy to figure.

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Post  Brett Summers Wed Jul 21, 2010 2:58 am

Hi Nina
What about lime sulfur Winter treatment! Whould you consider this benificial?

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Post  JimLewis Wed Jul 21, 2010 1:02 pm

So I guess the answer to Ricky"s question (finally!) is NO.

(or it should be)
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Post  Guest Wed Jul 21, 2010 2:53 pm

I use Provado as a preventative for Vine Weevil. We are over run with them here and unless I repot every year, this is the only way to deal with them.

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Post  Tom Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:06 pm

For vine weevil, I've started using predatory nematode worms. A company in the UK markets them under the name 'nemasys'.
I've used it for less than a year, but I found far fewer (one or none I think) grubs in my pots this spring than I did the previous year (when I used no control measures, and almost lost a couple of trees to root damage).
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Post  bonsaisr Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:07 pm

We discussed this before. According to the entomologist at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, it has its place. If you know from experience that a particularly noxious pest is going to arrive the first week in July, you can spray the target plant with a systemic insecticide on July 1. This is beneficial, because if you wait until you have a heavy infestation, you end up using more insecticide in the long run.
Iris
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Post  Kev Bailey Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:42 pm

Will, there is a very good (and cheap) vine weevil treatment, available in the UK, that I'm surprised has not become more widely used. Armillatox works very well for me and has been approved as a control by the Pesticides Safety Directorate. 1:500 dilution makes it really wallet friendly, especially when compared with Provado!
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Post  Guest Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:50 pm

Thanks Kev. You use it as a soil drench? This is one of the few chemicals that deals with Honey Fungus, so I am told.

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Post  Ricky Keaton Thu Jul 22, 2010 4:21 am

I guess im goin for, An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
I understand the dangers of insecticides on humans and good insects
and its not like i am spraying 40 acres, very controlled with little over spray if any,
most insects that are chewing on leafs on my trees can be hand picked off,
its the ones i dont see under bark or in soil that seem to do most damage,
so winter dormant spray of lime sulfur or horticulture oil has no effect in helping ensure
any damage later in the up coming year of insects or fungus?
My trees are hard to come by for me so if i have to spend $10.00 for preventive spray it seems worth it.
Like with fungus or bacteria that seems to hit during hot humid weather, that can be controlled with proper timing?
i should work with my county extension office for that then?





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Post  JimLewis Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:54 pm

so winter dormant spray of lime sulfur or horticulture oil has no effect in helping ensure
any damage later in the up coming year of insects or fungus?

LS over the winter and into early spring MAY help prevent some fungal infections. It seems to help me with rust infections.

At any other time of year, effects are minimal, and you are just spraying money onto your trees. I haven't the faith in systemics that Iris has. If something is chewing on my trees an evening spray with a pyrethrin takes care of it.

Everyone should be very careful spraying anything on maples, anyway. They seem to be quite sensitive to many things. So far, pyrethrin sprays don't seem (to me) to damage them.
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Post  Guest Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:39 pm

I have used a weak solution of lime sulphur on my Elms for a number of years in the control of black spot and also seems to be the only solution I can find for Elm leaf Gall.

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Post  63pmp Fri Jul 23, 2010 12:24 am

I understand that the USA and Europe has just about every pathogen and pest known to man. So coming from a country with a history of strong quarantine protection my advice regarding this matter is limited. However I think, from an agricultural point of view, that preventative spraying is only appropriate if you are targeting a known pathogen. Knocking out the known killers, like Dutch elm disease, or Japanese beetles, most plant pathogens and pests only attack weakened trees. Your best defense is developing top notch horticultural practices. This means learning about potting mediums, air filled porosity, fertilisers, how trees grow, plant pathology etc.

I don't want to put people down, but you will not learn that stuff on the internet, or on a forum. You will not learn it from a bonsai book. You will have to go to a bookshop, try amazon or something similar, and buy some good quality university level text books. Reard Read Read, learn learn learn; then ask questions. But do not really on anything from a forum. Instead use the forum as a place to get ideas on knowledge you are missing, and then start your search for information.

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Post  Guest Fri Jul 23, 2010 9:23 am

All of my trees are kept in excellent conditions. They are fed weekly and the soil mixes are very open and vary across the species to suit. This does not prevent them from being attacked by Mites, Bugs and Fungal infection. A weak tree may show symptoms earlier, or may even be killed if left untreated but healthy trees are not immune to attack.

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Post  JimLewis Fri Jul 23, 2010 4:51 pm

but healthy trees are not immune . . .

True to a point. But healthy trees are much less likely to get seriously attacked by insects. They also can survive an insect attack more readily. Unless you have a true infestation, you should hold off the poison sprays and try another approach. Your trees will cope.

Disease is another matter and may be more out of your control. Still you will have MUCH less disease on your trees if none of the canopies touch or overhang others, if there is good sunlight penetration deep into the canopy, and if you do not water so that the canopy gets soaked regularly (rains are bad enough as spreaders of fungus and other disease organisms). Air flow around the trees is good, too, but that largely happens if the canopies are kept apart from one another.

(Currently, my tables are much too crowded. As a result I have continuous problems with black mildew growth on the bark of branches and mildew on the leaves -- especially with the hot weather we have been suffering through. I also need to rethink my watering scheme with the crowded conditions as it seems unlikely that table space will increase significantly.)

I don't want to put people down, but you will not learn that stuff on
the internet, or on a forum. You will not learn it from a bonsai book.
You will have to go to a bookshop, try amazon or something similar, and
buy some good quality university level text books. Reard Read Read,
learn learn learn; then ask questions. But do not really on anything
from a forum. Instead use the forum as a place to get ideas on
knowledge you are missing, and then start your search for information.

I've been trying to get people to read books for several years now. But it's just too easy for this "modern" generation to click on something and get "information" on whatever (s)he wants to know. They don't seem to care that fully half the horticultural information disseminated on the Internet is pure crap unless they head to the science pages -- and then the words get kind large.

So, I'm with you, but good luck.

And, incidentally, OZ has all those stringent import regulations because not so long ago you didn't have them. And paid the price, in many instances. Yours and ours and especially the EU's should be much stronger!
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Post  Brett Summers Sat Jul 24, 2010 7:19 am

The thing that I have learnt lately is that a tree will eventually die from from disease or fungus or pest. The tree will have these through most of it's life and only when the tree becomes weak from being too large will it succumb to them.
Since Bonsai can theoretically live forever as they never get to this size it has made me realise why the eastern masters wear gloves and are methodical about preventative care. Every cut allows a pathogen in every pathogen is there forever and it is only the strength of the tree that keeps it at bay.

Part of this is that the healthier a tree is the better it is able to defend against pest and disease. But often the pest or disease wipes out healthy trees. Just as all the elms in America and Europe. You can't say all of those died because they where unhealthy. The disease got in and took over no matter what the health.
Ok that was a nasty disease and not all are like that but there are varying degrees of nasty and to say a healthy tree can not be affected has to be a false statement.

I don't think we need a since degree to have healthy Bonsai. It is not that hard!

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Post  63pmp Sat Jul 24, 2010 9:40 am

Your a breath of fresh air, Jim.

"The thing that I have learnt lately is that a tree will eventually die from from disease or fungus or pest. The tree will have these through most of it's life and only when the tree becomes weak from being too large will it succumb to them."

"there are varying degrees of nasty and to say a healthy tree can not be affected has to be a false statement."

These two statements tend to contradict each other. Got to be one or the other.

Trees are a bit like humans, in that there are diseases which simply kill us, say bubonic palgue. There are also diseases which we carry around forever and come back to haunt us when we are older and weaker, shingles for instance (maybe Alzheimers). I don't know why trees in nature, out in the forest wild type trees, die. I think they just kind of rot away from the inside and fall over. I'd like to hear your thoughts about it. I'm sure trees do carry pathogens on them all the time, but it's their health that keeps the pathogen at bay. As I said before somewhere, growing trees in pots is stressful, eventually you will wear a tree down if your are not carefull. Thats why you have to learn learn learn. I myself think is hard, I've been growing trees for 28 years, my oldest is 26, and I'm still learning new things that have improved my care and the trees health. It is so easy to kill a tree.

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Post  Brett Summers Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:55 pm

Paul You have been very rude to me on this Forum and others but for the benefit of anyone else interested I will explain my understanding.

Colin Lewis got me looking into why trees eventually die. Not sure how much of it Colin wrote but I first learnt that a tree eventually gets so big that it can no longer ship the vast distance from the roots to the tips and dies.
This didn't make alot of sense to me as I figured a tree was not that stupid and especially a deciduous tree that was able to back bud would just throw out new shoots further down as the top died away.
Then I learnt that a tree is able to compartmentalize pathogens away so they can not take over the tree. But it takes alot of energy to do. So when the tree is weakened from being too large for itself the pathogens escape and kill the tree.
There is evidence that an old tree may even encourage insects to eat out it's heartwood as this makes a stronger structure for the tree to stay standing than a solid heavy tree.

It seems there are diseases that are able to kill a healthy tree. There are diseases that hardly trouble a tree. So diversity of nature dictates that there must be a multitude of combinations in between so it makes sense to me that there is most probably a disease that can give a healthy tree a very hard time.
So I don't think we should suggest that only unhealthy trees are at risk of disease.
Or pest for that matter. Do locusts only eat sick plants. Again that is looking at the nastiest. There will be those pest that only attack sick trees so again there must be a multitude of combinations in between.

Not a single part of this came from any university science book Wink

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Post  JimLewis Sat Jul 24, 2010 3:45 pm

Colin has told me his theories, too. None of them, however, have any bearing on this discussion.

It seems there are diseases that are able to kill a healthy tree.


In which case, sometime along the line toward death it becomes stressed, and ceases being very healthy. Maybe you mean "infect?" A healthy person can be infected with TB if a sick person coughs on him -- in which case, he is no longer healthy.

There are diseases that hardly trouble a tree. So diversity of nature
dictates that there must be a multitude of combinations in between so
it makes sense to me that there is most probably a disease that can
give a healthy tree a very hard time.

I dunno what "diversity of nature" has to do with it (or even what it is in this context), but the fact remains that if your trees are kept under healthy conditions (see a message or three above) it is MUCH less likely that they will succumb to a critter, or disease. Which is all anyone has been saying here.

So I don't think we should suggest that only unhealthy trees are at risk of disease.

By definition, "unhealthy trees" already have something wrong with them. Unhealthy (i.e. stressed) trees -- whatever the cause, damaged by insects, lightening, wind, drought, bonsai shears on leaves or roots, or pathogen -- can become too weak to put up a fight.

Or
pest for that matter. Do locusts only eat sick plants.

Nope. But insects almost never are the direct cause of death for a tree. They weaken it, then something else does the deed.

Not a single part of this came from any university science book

And, I'm afraid, it shows.
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Post  Guest Sat Jul 24, 2010 5:25 pm

The examples I gave for preventative spraying,( Vine Weevil, Black spot and leaf gall) all infect and weaken healthy trees. When I first discovered Vine Weevil in my garden it was too late for some trees. A perfectly healthy tree with no roots is a dead tree. I used to go out at night with a torch and pick and squash the offending beggars. 300 in 1 Summer!!! Each adult( all female) will lay up to 600 eggs and 4 or 5 in a pot, will strip the roots of a tree over Winter. I therefore soil drench every year without question.
Blackspot and Gall Mite,if untreated in the Spring, will stop any reasonable growth for that year. My time on this planet is limited and it would be nice to have some trees to show for it. Lime Sulphur 30/1, is applied to my Elms every Winter without question.

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Post  Brett Summers Sun Jul 25, 2010 12:36 am

JimLewis wrote:Colin has told me his theories, too. None of them, however, have any bearing on this discussion.
I think the way a tree defends itself has everything to do with this subject! And I was asked.
It seems there are diseases that are able to kill a healthy tree.


In which case, sometime along the line toward death it becomes stressed, and ceases being very healthy. Maybe you mean "infect?" A healthy person can be infected with TB if a sick person coughs on him -- in which case, he is no longer healthy.
You say tomato I say tomatoe what does it matter?

There are diseases that hardly trouble a tree. So diversity of nature
dictates that there must be a multitude of combinations in between so
it makes sense to me that there is most probably a disease that can
give a healthy tree a very hard time.

I dunno what "diversity of nature" has to do with it (or even what it is in this context), but the fact remains that if your trees are kept under healthy conditions (see a message or three above) it is MUCH less likely that they will succumb to a critter, or disease. Which is all anyone has been saying here.
I think most would know what Diversity of Nature means even in this context but here is a scientific paper on it for you Jim. http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8JJ0Fg5IFhIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR13&dq=diversity+of+nature&ots=EizGu9ptic&sig=Tu0zfEkD5fYOJf5lglFLn12JXy4#v=onepage&q&f=false
Yes Jim it is less likely when a tree is kept healthy but we need to be careful what we preach as a healthy tree can be seriously affected by all soughts of critters or disease.
So I don't think we should suggest that only unhealthy trees are at risk of disease.

By definition, "unhealthy trees" already have something wrong with them. Unhealthy (i.e. stressed) trees -- whatever the cause, damaged by insects, lightening, wind, drought, bonsai shears on leaves or roots, or pathogen -- can become too weak to put up a fight.
With just a little charity to the author I am sure most people understand a healthy tree as being a tree "kept under healthy conditions" as you put it. Are these the biggest issues you have with what I suggested ??
Or
pest for that matter. Do locusts only eat sick plants.

Nope. But insects almost never are the direct cause of death for a tree. They weaken it, then something else does the deed.

Like Will said a tree can't survive without roots. One critter we have here is lawn curl grub. It will damage a healthy tree the same as any weak tree. I have never had a tree killed by these but I know people that have had several killed. That's several more than any they have had killed by a serious disease. So pests are their biggest killer of trees. The diversity of nature kinda makes a mess of Blanket statements such as yours.
Not a single part of this came from any university science book

And, I'm afraid, it shows.



Last edited by Brett Summers on Sun Jul 25, 2010 12:44 am; edited 1 time in total

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Post  63pmp Sun Jul 25, 2010 8:44 am

Brett,

It was not my attention to be rude, it was, however, to be blunt and to the point. I have been stuck in revolving discussions with you before and I'm trying to find a way around that. As have mentioned before, I find it difficult to get my idea's across to you. If you are offended, I apologize.

Thanks for the information regarding Colin Lewis and his theories about tree death. I've walked around a lot of national parks and pristine forest, and you know, a rarely see an old dead tree standing. The very old trees often appear broken down and hollowed out, but very much alive. I also see signs of bugs and fungus attacking them, they seem to be in a constant tug-o-war, but always one step ahead.

So many things will weaken a bonsai tree, I first thought about weak trees and disease attacks a a while back when some cryptomeria were being attacked by spider mites. I posted up on Btalk and some guy rudely told me I was over watering. I laughed and ignored him, sprayed and fiddled around, but it wasn't until I repotted into better mix and changed my watering habits that I finally got rid of the mites.


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