North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>]

> How bad is the damage from the psylla if you do nothing?

The years that I did not know how to control it all the leaves were  
extremely distorted and the trees hardly grew at all.  The trees grew  
only a foot or two in their first three years.  So it seemed like a  
really bad thing.  Lucky, the fact that you are only getting mild  
damage makes me think that is the normal case - if everyone had it as  
bad as I had been getting it there would be a lot more fuss being  
made about it.  I could have had it especially bad due to the fact  
that my trees had the psylla from the moment they were planted and  
were more susceptible to attack in their weak state.  Last year I  
finally got it under control and the trees got their first year of  
strong growth, so it could be that I don't need to be as aggressive  
about it anymore.  But, its hard for me to let nature takes its  
course after seeing my trees suffer so much.   I did let it go in the  
later months last year after I had beaten it completely back in June,  
and the psylla did not get going again that year.

Scott