Lime sulfur winter treatment

[Bretts]

It is often recommended to treat trees with a diluted lime sulfur treatment during winter after leaf fall. I did this one year and although it was stated that the whitish residue would disappear by spring I found it lasting most of the growing season with my Euro Hornbeam so I did not do it last year.
I generally don't use any thing to get rid of bugs as I don't seem to have that many. Maybe this is a mistake so I think I will lime sulfur during winter and follow up with pest oil through the growing season to see if this helps what I thought was mainly leaf burn.
Scale can be an issue but I generally have removed by hand. I have seen the occasional spider mite but unless there are more that I can not notice I thought the lady bird type predators where keeping them under control.
It will be interesting to note if there is much difference.
I would be interested to know what other members do and use. Does pest oil get rid of spider mites, they don't seem to be listed in it's uses?

[John Henry]

Hi Soltan, i use lime sulfer all the time and never had a problem ,i think you must be mixing it to strong use only a few drops to one litre of water.
thanks John

[Bretts]

Thanks I was thinking something similar. I had been told to use the recomended dosage on the bottle but recently read a dilution that seemed fairly weak. I should have taken note because I had given this some thought.
The bottle I have now states between 10-50ml per litre. It is a different bottle and I can't remember what I used a couple of years ago.
Thanks for your dilution mix I will try that.

[Elias]

Hmm could it be white mildew as in a fungicide?
I think I remember you need only 3% lime sulfur, so as John said a few drops into a litre would be sufficient, I would usually apply 2-3 times through out winter.
I find that Spider mite can be a real problem, I've seen a commercial fields completely wiped out, especially red spider mite at the sight of any spider mite I would use Confidor and obviously reapply within 2 weeks and again if needed, also unless I'm doing lots of trees I would usually purchase the aerosol as it helps to get right under the leaves, just make sure not to apply too close to the foliage .
With ladybirds eating aphids not sure on spider mite. I read that thousands of ladybirds are placed in certain parks to help with pests.
From my experience I find that pest oil tends to lessen an infestation but it might not necessarily get rid of the infestation.
Hope that helps