ravengirl09
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persea mites on avocado?

Ok, so I posted earlier about our little avocado tree getting brown spots on it's leaves. Doing more research and talking with a friend that works at a local nursery, it looks like mites. I checked the underside of the leaves and found these tiny black dots (that I presume to be the bugs) and scratched them off (carefully). We planned to order predator bugs, since that is the only "sure way" I can find to get rid of them....

Does anyone know of any other way to get rind of them? It's been almost a year and a half since we'd had ANY plants in our house... (sad, isn't it?! :cry: ) So I was surprised to find these black dots, and read about the mites giving the plant the same symptoms it has....

Oh, and if I need to get the predator bugs, can we do lady bugs, or does it have to be a predator mite? Thank you for your help!


(I know, this seems like a big fuss over 1 little tree.... :wink: )

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applestar
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Can you post some photos?

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ElizabethB
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You can not expect to grow avacados to grow to fruiting size in your region. Even in deep south Texas a freeze can devistate an avocado crop. I live in south Louisiana and root avacados for fun. They are nice ornamental plants on my patio. When winter hits I just start over.

ravengirl09
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Well, we're not growing it for fruit, just as a nice plant to have around. And I've tried to take pictures, but I will try again with a different camera... (our camera is.... well, not the best...)

until I can get good pictures up, I'll try to be more descriptive....

--imagine.... A beautiful, young avocado tree in a small black pot... It has Nine leaves... 3 medium ones on top, 3 just below that, alternating in place from the top ones that are bigger, and 3 smaller leaves about half way down the trunk. They all curve twards the ground gently, and change to point twards the sun when it shines on it.
-- all the leaves are still pretty green, and from even 6 inches away, you can't really even tell there is anything wrong with it... But as you look closer, you see brown spots dispersed randomly about the biggest leaves. Nothing on the 3 small bottom ones.
--then, the next day, you look again, and the very tip of the biggest leaves arenturning brown too. You look on the bottom of the leaves, and there, only a few, but here and there, there are little black dots. You gently scratch it to see what it is, and it smears, like a squished fly....

I don't know if this helps, but I will try to get pictures up so you can see...

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ElizabethB
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Try some Neem Oil. Make sure to treat the underside of the leaves.

ravengirl09
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rainbowgardener
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can other people actually see these photos (for more than two seconds)? I have the same problem with them I am having with the whole beta-photobucket site. The picture flashes up for a couple seconds and then goes to blank screen.

ravengirl, if the beta-photobucket site is working for you and it works how it used to, then you can mouse over your picture and an Img code will come up that you can paste here. Then your picture will be embedded here and show in your post.

Jeez photobucket, don't fix what aint broken!! I never had any problems with the original site and recommended it to lots of people. Now I'm sorry I did!

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applestar
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The links take me to the album where I can see any photo stored there (is ths what you really want? Don't worry, I didn't explore beyond noting that there are other photos beyond the avocado leaves :wink:) rainbowgardener is correct -- on my iPad though I don't get the mouseover floating code selection, but there is a pull down menu to the right "Image links" -- choose "IMG code" -- clicking on it should cause the link to be automatically copied for pasting here.

It's possible photobucket is trying to allow idevice browsers to use their website. Clicking for auto copying doesn't work, but I can now select all and copy the links where previous version didn't let me do even that, and you HAD to use their idevice app. which was buggy. Beta status is showing because the commands to select all and copy appears halfway across on the other side of the screen instead of directly above where the img codes are :lol: My album loads readily on the app where I had to reset/logout and log in each time -- a three step process involving a separate Settings app -- to access them before. :roll:

Can you also post photo of underside of a particularly affected leaf? The brown spot/splotches could be anything including sunburn from water droplet (or for instance furniture wax spray). It's the white pinpoint spots I think I see that to me would indicate sucking pest activity underneath.



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