INSECT AND FUNGUS PESTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 August 1940, Page 3

INSECT AND FUNGUS PESTS

SPRAY FOR DESTRUCTION. Winter is a good time to spray fruit trees for the destruction of insect and fungus pests, for though they are in the resting stage and are more difficult to destroy, the trees are also in the resting stage and a much stronger spray can be used. Scale Insects.—Few fruit trees are exempt from the attacks of one or more ,f the species of scale insects, which weaken the trees by sucking theii juices, causing them to become sickly and unfruitful and occasionaly killing whole branches. Their secretions also render the fruit loathsome and the Dicky matter besides closing up the pores of the trees, becomes the seat of a destructive fungus. All scale insects are developed from eggs packed away below the bodies of the females and arc protected bj the hard coat or scale. When thcs< hatch out they have three pairs o< minute legs and are quite active when young. They have also a strong beat, which they bore into the plant tissue, and when once fixed their legs and the hard covering scale develops and they remain fixed sucking up the juices of the plant as long as they live The causic soda spray as applied foi moss will kill them if there is no', many, but an oil spray of some kind such as commercial red oil, is usually recommended. This will close tlaeii breathing pores and smother them. For a summer spray li ounces ol nicotine and 11b of soft soap dissolved in 20 gallons of warm water is a suitable 1 Woolly aphis is also a troublesome pest causing a knobbed appeal ancc somewhat like canker. It attacks the roots as well as the branches, and soon reduces the vitality ol the tree. Foitunately there is a natural enemy (Aphelinus mali>. which keeps it in check, but if the parasite is not present. painting it with methylated spirits losing a half-worn paint brush to rub lit in is effective. For powdery mildew or other fungus I pests spraying with lime sulphur is I recommended. This can be obtained from the seedsmen, and for winter use can be diluted to from one in twelve to one in twenty. Whether an oil spray, lime sulphur or caustic soda is used, it must be remembered that these have to be put i n as a line mist, completely to wet all parts, and to get into all the nooks and crannies where the pests may be hiding to be clfective.