GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

02-04-2004, 03:43 AM

(frank luff) writes:
John Savage wrote:
I'd like to know whether the native lime trees are just as attractive to
the same pests as bedevil exotic citrus trees, viz., the citrus leaf miner
and the bronze citrus beetle? It would be a big tick in their favour if
the native trees were immune to the attentions of these pests.
After seeing the program on ABC I ordered two desert lime trees, finger
limes are apparently for wetter climes.
The pests you have are ? not known here?
Where do you live?

Bronze citrus bugs are the size of Christmas beetles, but flattened. They
suck on the developing fruit and it later drops off. There is no spray
that will kill the beetles, not with safety for edible crops, anyway. The
beetles can destroy almost your whole crop unless you pick them off every
few days; new ones fly in from your neighbour's tree. The leaf miner eats
wriggly lines in the green layer inside a leaf causing the leaf to curl up;
this reduces the tree's vigour and gives it a very sick appearance. I'm in
Sydney. Treatment for leaf miner is a spray of pest oil to both sides of
every leaf every fortnight, all year round.
--
John Savage (news address invalid; keep news replies in newsgroup)