Add Photo to Journal
|
|
| Photo Credit: ©2005 Buglady Consulting |
| A two-spotted spider mite adult is on the left. An immature spider mite is on the right. |
Since moving to the southern end of San Joaquin Valley in California, I’ve seen more fruit and nut trees than I thought possible. Some of the common monoculture plantings include almonds, cherries, peaches, nectarines, walnuts, pistachios, plums and prunes. Each orchard has individual challenges depending on soil, cultural practices, climate and other environmental variables, but they often share similarities when it comes to insect and mite pests.
For example, stone fruits, including cherries, peaches and prunes (which are a fruit – not just dried plums as I used to think), all battle spider mites as a common pest. These detrimental eight-legged critters have the ability to explode into huge, uncontrollable populations that can defoliate a tree if left unchecked. How do they damage a tree? A spider mite’s head is similar to a large straw. The pests insert it into plant cells and then draw the cell contents into their bodies to digest. This causes the leaves on the trees to get a stippled look because the green chlorophyll is no longer present, and a white spot or empty plant cell is left behind. The tree doesn’t have the ability to repair that cell; all it can do is push out new growth to compensate for the damage on the older growth, which takes nutrients away from the following growing season. New growth often occurs late in the season, after the tree’s already fruited and been harvested. (FYI, spider mites don’t damage the fruit – other pests do that.) The tree wastes energy by producing new growth for leaves that’ll simply fall off another month or two later.
|