hello!

dh has a friend who is giving us a fig tree, so i was hoping to help her
with her problem!

she has a lemon tree stricken simultaneously with:

some sort of mould that i think is sooty mould(?!) it's firm, slightly
scratchy to touch, black, and when you turn the leaf in teh light there is
something of a sparkly, mica-like effect. it can't be rubbed off the leaf.

and, small bugs all along the centres of the leaves (top side.) very very
small - the smallest are less than 0.5mm, & look like 6 teeny tiny legs
covered with white, and a teeny tiny ridge on their back (also white). the
bigger ones (about 1mm) are the same, but reddish body between the tiny
ridges of white. oval-shaped. i can't give a better description because even
with magnifying goggles, i can't identify them any better - i jsut can't SEE
them properly.

there's also scale there.

i was going to recommend she try white oil to suffocate the buglets &
scale - but, don't many bugs carry fungi etc with them and may be
responsible for the black stuff too....?

any ideas? we are in canberra.
many, many thanks :-)
kylie