Sooty Mold

Wow. Today was a day of deep cleaning. You know the kind...under the kitchen sink. Behind the garbage can. On top of the fridge. And of course...EVERY SINGLE LEAF OF THE ORANGE TREE! What? You say you cleaned your Orange Tree? Yes I did, and I learned a bit about insect excretions in the process.

A few

 days ago I noticed the orange tree was, well,...not orange,...not green,...but black. Yikes! A dark, dull, ashy, gritty, sticky, black substance thickly covered all the leaves on our mid-sized, (5 years old?) orange tree. I had to do something. This does not look good for happy chlorophyll pumping activity.

So I did some research, and found through the Ag Extension and various sites, a bit about the problem. It's Sooty Mold combined with insect honeydew, (which is aphid or whitefly secretions). Turns out I was kind of right about the food production "blocking effects" of this stuff. Invading insects secrete a clear, sticky stuff, (honeydew) on leaves, and then wind-borne, Sooty Mold spores stick to the honeydew and create the thick, black coating which does block plant photosynthesis.

Yowsa!

My readings suggested washing the leaves with Murphy's Oil soap, so I went for it. It took over an hour and I was covered with sticky flaky bug shit by the end, but I got great aesthetic results. See my before and after pics!

Before

After! 

After the long, meticulous and loving cleaning, I also gave the whole tree a nice soapy spritz and then moved on to all the other citrus trees in the yard. They are unaffected with the mold so far. Let's keep it that way. So I spritzed them all with Murphy's too. The soapy spritz is also supposed to help keep the critters away. I looked and didn't see a lot of bugs, but I do think I saw some tiny whitefly larve on the underside of one leaf. Bye bye suckers (literally).

I'll keep trying the soapy spritz, (just found a suggestion to try baking soda and vegetable oil with the Murphy's -might try that) on all the tress. I'm avoiding pesticides at all costs and I'll keep you posted on the results. And if I get a bumper crop of citrus next winter and you come down for a sunny visit, I'll squeeze you a glass.

In any case, my orange tree looks much better and looks to me like it feels much better too.

...and now, after the grossness of that job, I better go look and feel much better too.

Splasssshhhhhh.................Ahhhhhhh