ID this pest please Murraya + Trident Maple curl

[bodhidharma]

Pity the poor bloke who wanted some help with his trees.

Thanks Moj, eloquently put and exactly what i was thinking. I say this with respect, Information is not knowledge and we can get so caught up in the information that we forget to turn it into knowledge and then no good trees would be produced, just talk. I am gonna go out and prune something.

[Bretts]

You must be kidding me. Should I apologise for passing on the information of a pathology report that shows this issue to be a fungus
Should I apologise for giving my advice on an issue that I have put great effort into solving over the last three years and have made great headway
Should I take the advice of a member who has never posted a tree or progressions over someone like Walter Pall who year in year out amazes us with what he is accomplishing just because they have a degree.
Should I waver in my opinion just because members want to debate the person instead of the issue
Shane asked for my opinion

BTW Bretts, what are your thoughts on the Ammonium toxicity theory in the above post?
cheers mate

I gave my disagreement with Paul in a very diplomatic way. I could have said, you should not listen to a person that has never shown any results of his degree and thinks that sticking a wick in a drainage hole for root bound tridents is a good thing when my tridents grow even better when slightly root bound one year before needing a repot.
But no I did not want to get into any argument. I simply stated what I have learnt from experience and hoped that people would remember that I am an avid poster of my success as well as failures and think that bullshit just makes the world more complicated.
Life is too short for that.

[bodhidharma]

Life is too short for that.

Agreed, check your inbox

[Bretts]

I apreciate the clarification Bodi

[Mojo Moyogi]

Hi Brett, Is there any chance we could get some details from the pathology report that you had done? /quote]

You must be kidding me. Should I apologise for passing on the information of a pathology report that shows this issue to be a fungus

Brett,
So far the details you have provided (repeatedly) have been 2 words, "fungus" and "Bravo". Not very comprehensive this information that you have passed on.

I do not doubt that you know more about the fungal issue that is has plagued your Tridents than the majority of the rest of us on this forum. Dare I say that the cause of your fungal woes is likely to be cultural. Highly likely. 3 years ago when the trouble began, you were by your own admission, using poor soil, overwatering, acquiring stock that was not healthy in the first place and growing tree species that not really suited to your location, often having to resort to keeping deciduous species in soft conditions to protect them from the harsh summer in Parkes. Your initial response to the unknown fungus/pest/virus was multiple chemical treatments, prunings, defoliations and repottings.

Plenty of people in this place have repeatedly offered you assistance, only to have it thrown at them publicly and via PM.

And finally I find it galling that you scoff at those who are trained in (and I might add, earn a living from)the field of horticulure, agriculture and science or assume that those of us that choose not to use this forum as "bonsai Twitter" have nothing to offer AusBonsai.


Mojo

[Bretts]

Mojo Moyogi wrote:
Hi Brett, Is there any chance we could get some details from the pathology report that you had done? /quote]

Bretts wrote:
You must be kidding me. Should I apologise for passing on the information of a pathology report that shows this issue to be a fungus

Quoting me out of context is exactly the sought of crap that I am pissed about.

Brett,
So far the details you have provided (repeatedly) have been 2 words, "fungus" and "Bravo". Not very comprehensive this information that you have passed on.

A respectable member of the bonsai community managed to get a pathology report of this issue. They passed the information on to us all here on the forum. The treatment showed the expected results. Yes it is a pity that the name of the fungus was lost if it was ever given but anyone that wants to sit on that issue is just being pig headed in my opinion. What more do you want as details the toxic PPM of the fungus present? Only the main issues needed to deal with the issue where taken note of, Fungus treat with bravo. I doubt the people doing the test saw it as anything but simple.
I tried the same treatment and it also gave me the expected result.

If you just look at the number of people that have made posts about this issue you can not say it is an isolated incidence. In distributing bravo to several people I have seen much better collections than mine devastated by this issue. One amazing collection that had been cared for many years with no issues was now a mess with at least half the trees just hanging onto life.
I can assure you the problem of this issue is not cultural whatever you mean by that.
Several years ago when I first come across this issue I was very confused by it but now in hindsight I find it very simple.
In my own garden I would call what I faced as a perfect storm.
I had several hundred trident saplings that had been growing wild being self seeded mainly from a neighbours trident tree. I had severely root pruned all these saplings into soil that was for stock trees not well sifted. In normal circumstances we would have expected 90% of these trees to survive. But with the break in the drought we had what Don Burke described as the worst year for Fungus in 20 years.
Asking for help on the Internet, as I have come to expect in the seven years I have been on them I am inundated with opinions of what the problem is and ways to fix it.
Off course you can not take every opinion as the fact of the matter and in trying to work out which advice to take I lost a couple of specimen trees and I believe I lost at least 1 year if not 2 years of development with many of my trees.
I tried several solutions that did not work until we got the pathology report that stated to treat with bravo and got what can be called instant results.
One very bad piece of advice I got was to defoliate the damaged leaves and soon found that even with the chemical treatment the tree needed the energy of the leaves to fight the fungus and defoliating gave the fungus the upper hand which often resulted in the death of the tree.
I also noted that several members found that in time as the trees put on more growth they seemed to overcome the issue and in my opinion this was directly related to the tree having more energy after recovering from root and shoot pruning. I believe as the break of the drought is passing us things will again come into balance, and I have seen the proof of this over the last couple of years, but in reality I have no way to tell for sure how much of an issue this will be in the future for the trees affected as some documentation suggests that once hit with a fungus it will be there for the life of the tree but possibly dormant until the tree is stressed again.
Before this happened I had been silly enough to purchase saplings that I knew affected by fungus such as rust expecting that just me good care would see them right. But I now know that any fungus or disease is not to be taken lightly and I must take better care not to infect my trees.
I have also learnt that on occasions there will be nothing I can do if the conditions are right Disease can take on even the healthiest of trees.

One of my best friends is a doctor of Physics that I have the utmost respect for. I have found this does not mean he is always right even in his related field and there is no excuse for calling some one naive just because they disagree with you

[63pmp]

Hi Joe

So would a blood and bone meal provide calcium? I am perhaps stupidly assuming that the calcium from the bones will be transfered to the plants

Yes, blood and bone contains calcium and phosphate. It is a good source of both these nutrients, and is slow relase as well.

I think organic based pastes/blocks such as they use in Japan are very good for fertilizing. They are slow release so nutrients are supplied continuously and naturally to the plants.

Although I use chemical fertilisers routinely, I don't think they are easy to use or fool proof. I think they need to be used with care, especially in the case of bonsai because of the type of soils/potting mixes we used. Potting mixes have a low ability to absorb chemical "shocks" and plant roots are pushed from one extreme (no nutrients) to another (excessive nutrients) instantly. That they cope well enough most of the time is amazing, but you can over do it. The use of organic blocks really reduces the nutrient shock to plants and is a good way to fertilise.

Paul

[Jow]

Ok, so if blood and bone takes care of the calcium needs what should i add to my cakes to take care of the magnesium?

I am thinking of using a simple recipe next year of Cotton seed meal and blood and bone wet down with fish emulsion. Would you add anything to this mix to take care of the magnesium needs?

Joe

[63pmp]

Brett, please read slowly and carefully.

I has have repeatedly stated, a bacterial/fungal problem is always a possibility.

I have the highest regard for Mr Pall and his obvious artistic skill in designing and training bonsai, I don't necessarily have to agree with his fertiliser program simply because he has lots of top qaulity bonsai.

As I have always stated, what works for you is good, but if you are having problems, then you need to look at that in a broad encompassing manner that investigates every possibility. In my awkward way I am attempting to show how that can be achieved cheaply and successfully in your own yard. Do a pH, look at waterlogging, then look at nutritional factors, can't find anything there then look at pathogens. My belief is that the trees used for bonsai are very resistant to diseases, they are not crop and vegetable plants that have been hybridized and mutated to grow abundant food at the cost of plant strength. That is why I always look for pH, waterlogging and nutrient problems first.

What you fail to recognise is that what happens in your barkyard with this fungus does not make it universal, and the only problem a tree will experience. If leaf symptoms were so good a pin pointing problems there would be no point in pathology testing, leaf tissue analysis, soil anaylisis etc. Leaf symptoms are a tip off that something is wrong, not what is wrong.

I don't post my trees for private reasons, though I have on occasion posted pictures of trees over the years. I don't see that I have to have show qaulity trees to have credible input on a forum.

Don't confuse artistic talent with horticultural competency.

The information I present is not made up, it is the result of ongoing scientific research into current horticultural and biological systems world wide. It is the result of good science. You may wish to ignore it, thats your choice, but you have to remember that science is about explaining the natural world, if you want to grow plants well you need to have an understanding of how they grow. You can save yourself hundreds of years of wasted time by just picking up a good book.


Bodhi

Information is knowledge; information is not wisdom. I wise person will look at what is offered and learn from it. An unwise person will simply dismiss it.


Regards

Paul

[63pmp]

Joe,

Ok, so if blood and bone takes care of the calcium needs what should i add to my cakes to take care of the magnesium?

I am thinking of using a simple recipe next year of Cotton seed meal and blood and bone wet down with fish emulsion. Would you add anything to this mix to take care of the magnesium needs?


Blood and bone will have some magnesium in it, here are some figures on bone meal, all B&B varies depending on how its put together so this is a guide only

N=2-4 %dry weight
P=4-7 % dry weight
K= not given
Ca=33 % dry weight
Mg = 0.5% dry weight

Simplest way of adding magnesium would be use magnesite, it's magnesium carbonate, not highly souble so it will last. Add that as a powder to your cakes. May have to experiment on what size grains would be best, ultrafine powder as they use in agricuture may be too fine and raise pH too much. But 1-2 mm may work well as cakes are only used for a short time before exhaustion anyway. Another source is Epsom Salts, Magnesium Sulphate, this is very soluble and will disapear quickly,best applied in irrigation water.

Another option is to add dolomite as lumps to your potting mix, say in 5-7 mm grain size. This will be a slow release source, only good for a few months, but you can always top dress trees with more. I believe Lindsay Farr does this with his trees. Because of the large grain size it doesn't affect pH too much.

regards

Paul

[Jow]

Thanks Paul.

[bodhidharma]

Information is knowledge; information is not wisdom. I wise person will look at what is offered and learn from it. An unwise person will simply dismiss it.

Well, i guess it is just wordplay Paull, Which i am not great at. If we look at information anybody can have it. Just fire up google and we can spew stuff all over the place. Knowledge, in my understanding, is taking information, proving it for yourself by the practise of said information, and being able to share it with someone else through understanding. Anybody can access information. Not everyone can convert it to experience and relay it with clarity. Now Wisdom, that is a whole different world.

[Shane Martin]

Hi all,
Didn't plan on reopening a can of worms on this topic, but I have just had a visit from my local energy company who wants me to give approval to remove 2 large figs from my front gate as they are too close to the powerlines. Trim them I said!
Anyway, one of the guys was a qualified arborist and tree surgeon, who happened to notice one of my Trident maples. This particular tree has the usual distorted leaf as well as masses of shoots from one spot, which barely open before turning black and dying. After some discussion, he seemed to think it was a problem he had seen in some Aussie natives, and said it might be a viral condition called Witches Broom disease. I did a search on Google, and this is what I found. Anyone else heard of this disease?

From Wikipedia
A Witch's broom is a disease or deformity in a woody plant, typically a tree, where the natural structure of the plant is changed. A dense mass of shoots grows from a single point, with the resulting structure resembling a broom or a bird's nest.
One example of this would be cytokinin, a phytohormone, interfering with an auxin-regulated bud. Usually auxin would keep the secondary, tertiary, and so on apexes from growing too much, but cytokinin releases them from this control, causing these apexes to grow into witch's brooms.

[kcpoole]

Hi Shane, Interesting, Any idea what the Treatment is?

Ken

[Bretts]

That's interesting Shane.
One thing I have noticed with this issue is even though the growth is so bad the root growth is much more than expected. I figured this to be a result of the tree continually trying to put out new buds (which would increase the auxin level and encourage root growth) but maybe it is happening the other way around. Hormones out of wack is causing the lots of deformed buds and increased root growth.
It would be interesting to see if adding a hormone, maybe Gibberellins, could help the tree over come the disease.

Is that pictures of your tree? Nasty stuff
Have you tried a fungicide yet?