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Im sorry if this post is too long. I am adding information that may be useful for someone to help me with my issues.
We own a house in Humacao, Puerto Rico. The house is less than 1/4 mile from the beach so our soil is slightly sandy with alot of small to medium size rocks and I suspect salty. I've dug several holes in this dirt when planting and found that after about 2.5 feet, the soil turns to clay.
Please note. Our primary residence is in an apartment in Brooklyn, NY. We vacation at the house in PR twice a year for about 4-5 weeks. So our tree maintenance window is very small.
Ever since the 80's, this plot of land had a Mango tree. The mango tree is currently 19 feet tall only because we have been pruning the tallest branches. Also we cut back the tallest branches in the middle of the tree to allow sunlight in. The Mango tree actually survived hurricane Maria (9/2017) because it was between two structures. One of its 3 leading trunks did fall, but the other two trunks remain. The mango tree gave us a small harvest in June of 2018 and by June of 2019 its harvest was back to normal.
We are currently in Puerto Rico (today is 12/25/2020) and noticed that our Mango tree has lots of black sooty mold. We did some research and found that this sooty mold comes from bugs that have eggs on the bottom part of leaves that are above the leaves with the sooty mold. So we have been painstakingly going through the leaves to remove any eggs/cocoons and the black sooty mold from the leaves. We also plan to apply "Organicide", "BeeSafe 3-in-1 Garden Spray" after we clean all the leaves. The first two pictures show this.
We've tried homemade organic insecticides. In the past, we have applied a mix of garlic, onion and cayenne pepper with a sprayer. In 6/20/2020 we were also in PR and applied a homemade whitewash (recipe is below) to the tree trunk in an attempt to prevent insects/pests from climbing up on the tree. We even applied a layer of tanglefoot paper with a layer of sticky paste to the trunk of some smaller Mango, avocado, custard apple and Soursop trees. However, the infestations are still occurring. I think its because we are not here in PR to repeatedly apply the organic insecticides.
Our Soursop trees have similar infestations. These trees have given us many fruit in the past year and are currently budding a lot. However, the buds seem to be falling off on their own before maturing to a fruit. There is one fruit on the Soursop tree which is covered with a white powder like bushy dust. The last three pictures show this. The leaves I circled in the last picture show the petals of the bud that was on the soursop tree.
I guess my question is, how can I better control these infestations given the limited amount of time we have here in Puerto Rico? What are our options? Any recommendations? Any help is appreciated.
Whitewash recipe:
2 cups of salt with 1 gallon of warm water and stir to dissolve the salt.
6 to 8 cups of hydrated lime to the salt water.
1 cup diatomaceous earth
Mix well until the lime is dissolved.
8 DROPS OF EACH:
castor oil
cinnamon oil
clove oil
garlic oil
peppermint oil
spearmint oil
rosemary oil
neem oil
tea tree
lemongrass
Mix well. The mixture should be thinner than traditional paint.
We own a house in Humacao, Puerto Rico. The house is less than 1/4 mile from the beach so our soil is slightly sandy with alot of small to medium size rocks and I suspect salty. I've dug several holes in this dirt when planting and found that after about 2.5 feet, the soil turns to clay.
Please note. Our primary residence is in an apartment in Brooklyn, NY. We vacation at the house in PR twice a year for about 4-5 weeks. So our tree maintenance window is very small.
Ever since the 80's, this plot of land had a Mango tree. The mango tree is currently 19 feet tall only because we have been pruning the tallest branches. Also we cut back the tallest branches in the middle of the tree to allow sunlight in. The Mango tree actually survived hurricane Maria (9/2017) because it was between two structures. One of its 3 leading trunks did fall, but the other two trunks remain. The mango tree gave us a small harvest in June of 2018 and by June of 2019 its harvest was back to normal.
We are currently in Puerto Rico (today is 12/25/2020) and noticed that our Mango tree has lots of black sooty mold. We did some research and found that this sooty mold comes from bugs that have eggs on the bottom part of leaves that are above the leaves with the sooty mold. So we have been painstakingly going through the leaves to remove any eggs/cocoons and the black sooty mold from the leaves. We also plan to apply "Organicide", "BeeSafe 3-in-1 Garden Spray" after we clean all the leaves. The first two pictures show this.
We've tried homemade organic insecticides. In the past, we have applied a mix of garlic, onion and cayenne pepper with a sprayer. In 6/20/2020 we were also in PR and applied a homemade whitewash (recipe is below) to the tree trunk in an attempt to prevent insects/pests from climbing up on the tree. We even applied a layer of tanglefoot paper with a layer of sticky paste to the trunk of some smaller Mango, avocado, custard apple and Soursop trees. However, the infestations are still occurring. I think its because we are not here in PR to repeatedly apply the organic insecticides.
Our Soursop trees have similar infestations. These trees have given us many fruit in the past year and are currently budding a lot. However, the buds seem to be falling off on their own before maturing to a fruit. There is one fruit on the Soursop tree which is covered with a white powder like bushy dust. The last three pictures show this. The leaves I circled in the last picture show the petals of the bud that was on the soursop tree.
I guess my question is, how can I better control these infestations given the limited amount of time we have here in Puerto Rico? What are our options? Any recommendations? Any help is appreciated.
Whitewash recipe:
2 cups of salt with 1 gallon of warm water and stir to dissolve the salt.
6 to 8 cups of hydrated lime to the salt water.
1 cup diatomaceous earth
Mix well until the lime is dissolved.
8 DROPS OF EACH:
castor oil
cinnamon oil
clove oil
garlic oil
peppermint oil
spearmint oil
rosemary oil
neem oil
tea tree
lemongrass
Mix well. The mixture should be thinner than traditional paint.
