Trouble in the Nursery
- Thread starter greyphase
- Start date
TreeDaddy
5 year old buck +
My issue is persimmon psylla
I made a positive ID on the little bastards this AM(found an adult insect)
Is permetrhrin SFR the Rx? This is 36.8% permethrin and type from Keystone
Hi yield pet plant and livestock( Big Box type) is 10% and type used for flea control,etc
Would a Sevin spray be effective?
Many thanks ,Jack for suggesting the right diagnosis
bill
I made a positive ID on the little bastards this AM(found an adult insect)
Is permetrhrin SFR the Rx? This is 36.8% permethrin and type from Keystone
Hi yield pet plant and livestock( Big Box type) is 10% and type used for flea control,etc
Would a Sevin spray be effective?
Many thanks ,Jack for suggesting the right diagnosis
bill
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Bill,
Yep, it is funny how close the verbal descriptions of the two are at some stages. The key for psylla is recognizing it early and treating it. With persimmon seedlings, as soon as I see ants, I treat. Psylla seems only to affect young new leaves, so in my case I have plenty of older leaves on the seedlings when I take them outside so the percentage lost to psylla is not enough to hurt the tree much I catch it early. However, if you don't treat, every new leaf will be affected.
I probably should have included this warning on other threads and I'm glad ToddG asked and Maya replied on one of the apple seedling threads. The permethrin SRF from Keystone is what I use. I use it for a lot of stuff. It is not approved for application to your skin. I use it to apply to my turkey hunting coveralls as it kills ticks. If I don't get caught in the rain one application can last half the season. They sell it in small aerosol cans for that purpose. The military has used it for many years.
When I had an issue with fungus gnats starting trees indoors one year, I followed the advice of someone on the QDMA forum (evidently no longer the words which must not be spoken together) and crumbled mosquito dunks on top of the mix in my 18s. It helped but was not 100% effective. I tried some of the permethrin and it worked well. I also started using the spray cans in my blinds to make them less attractive to wasps. I was soon using enough that it was much less expensive to buy the concentrate from Keystone and mixing my own. I used the empty redi-mix Sevin spray bottles around the house.
I had been using Sevin when Japanese beetles started hitting my chestnut seedlings so I tried the permethrin. It was just as effective as Sevin but needed much less frequent application. Permethrin is very safe on trees themselves. The natural form of the chemical comes from chrysanthemum as a defense against insects.
The reason it is only approved for application to clothing and not skin is that it can be absorbed through the skin and can be carcinogenic. You definitely don't want to ingest the stuff. that is why you don't see it on the list of sprays for fruit trees. I don't use it on producing trees. For indoor use, with a trigger pump sprayer bottle, it works fine. For seedlings on my deck I have a small 1/2 gal pump type sprayer. I only spray when it is calm cause I don't want a wind gust blowing it back on me.
As for psylla, you can't really kill the eggs. Remove and discard those curling leaves that are affected. The Sevin or Permethrin work as prophylactics. You spray the newly emerging leaves and adults don't lay more eggs on them.
For seedlings I use the same permethrin mix rate as those recommended for Ornamental trees on the label. They are just as effective on fruit and nut tree seedlings. You just don't want to spray it on producing trees where the fruit may be eaten.
Thanks,
jack
greyphase
5 year old buck +
Sorry to hear that you too are having troubles Matt. I'm going to be cautiously optimistic and say that I think mine are making a slow improvement.
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
I found out your compost can be too hot for green beans! I let my mom plant a couple of short rows in my nursery plot .... they havent done well and when I researched it says too much Nitrogen will cause issues for any plants in the legume family.
