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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Control for persimmon psylla?

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  • From: Lee Reich <garden@leereich.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Control for persimmon psylla?
  • Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 21:32:19 -0400

How bad is the damage from the psylla if you do nothing? Do you still get a good crop of fruit? Plants can tolerate a certain amount of pest damage, compensating for some loss of foliage by increased photosynthetic efficiency of the remaining, healthy foliage.

Lee Reich, PhD

Books by Lee Reich:
The Pruning Book
Weedless Gardening
Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden
A Northeast Gardener's Year


On Jun 5, 2007, at 3:38 PM, Scott Smith wrote:

I have been fighting the persimmon psylla for five years now.  It  
took me a couple years to even figure out what it is since it is  
uncommon, then a couple more to figure out how to control it to any  
degree.  At this point I can generally keep it in check but it  
requires more work than I would like to spend on it.  The main  
problem is the psylla curls up the edges of the leaves and creates a  
little cocoon in which sprays do not reach.

I am generally an organic grower which mostly limits myself to oil  
and soap and the like.  Here is what I have tried that works: soap  
and oil sprays both work, but for the curled leaves you need to  
manually uncurl them with one hand as you spray with the other hand.   
Another thing I have done is at the same time as a spray to tip all  
of the new shoots, which is where the psylla like to lay eggs the  
most and where it is hard to spray thoroughly.  It also gives the  
flies no good egg-laying spots for awhile.  I also remove the edges  
of infected larger leaves.   If a leaf is badly damaged I may remove  
the whole leaf.  This is faster than trying to unfurl and spray it.    
And occasionally I get desperate and spray malathion, no more than  
once per season.  Lately I have been experimenting with Surround  
which is known to work on pear psylla so I thought  it may also do  
something on persimmon psylla.  It does seem to have some effect, but  
the new shoots grow very rapidly and so very frequent sprays are  
required to keep them covered.  Also the flies seem to have a knack  
for finding the one little spot that was missed with the spray and to  
put the eggs there.  I plan on continuing my experiments with  
Surround since it may have some promise.

Has anyone found a good, permanent, preferably organic treatment for  
this pest?  I am surprised how little I read about it yet how  
difficult it is for me to control.

Scott

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