"Jeff Layman" wrote

It's not mealy bug which is the pest with me, but scale insect. Then you
get black mould everywhere on the leaves below from their droppings! And,
like you say, RSM is a permanent pest too. Bayer's "Plant Rescue" used to
work pretty well as it contained abamectin, but because it also contained
thiamethoxam it was removed from the market. It would be useful to have
something with abamectin back, as there is nothing active against RSM. I am
in total agreement with you about biological control being too variable for
the amateur.

When I repotted my mandarin/clementine/whatever (I lost the label years
ago) it sulked for a couple of years losing all its leaves and was attacked
by numerous pests. But I persevered with it. Last year it grew lots of nice
new foliage, and at present has hundred of flower buds just about to open.
I'll bet the RSM and scale insects can't wait...



Scale is the big pest as far as I'm concerned. We have two Lemon trees, two
Tahiti Limes, an Orange, a Grapefruit, an an ornamental lime thing with huge
fruit. The best way to deal with scale if you want to use the fruit is to
blast them off with a sprayer pumped up to max pressure containing water a a
tiny bit of detergent. Yes you get soaked too and it's a long process going
over every branch and leaf but it works.


--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK