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With the citrus making good growth at present, it’s time to feed them unless you
have already done so. I use a water-soluble citrus fertilizer, that is loaded with the
minor trace elements, that citrus need. The organic only pellets or straight blood and
bone only give you lush shiny leaves and do nothing for a good fruit set.
You also need to apply a foliar spray of zinc and manganese, because although these are
included as traces in most citrus fertilizers, that fact is that on our local alkaline
soil, they get locked up and those nutrients are not available to your citrus, so
deficiencies occur.
A manganese deficiency appears like a mild chlorosis with yellow leaf blotches, but the
veins are less pronounced than with a lime-induced-chlorosis. The zinc deficiency also
produces a chlorotic leaf too, but you get tip die-back as well and the leaves are
generally small, thin and motley.
Foliar spraying is best done by dissolving the fertilizer in warm water along with 5
grams of urea per 5 litres of spray, to aid the foliage uptake of manganese. Failure to do
so is next to useless! It’s one reason, some folk can grow wonderful citrus in
containers, because the soil pH can be manipulated more easily.
Citrus scale is also pretty common at this time of year too, so a late afternoon spray
of PestOil™ is effective control, without any toxicity to be concerned about. You may
be used to using Malathion, but I’ve found I get control with nothing more than
PestOil™. If the dead scale offend you wash them off the leaves.
Black Aphids on citrus also need controlling right now and the PestOil™ helps on
those too, along with a squirt from a jet of water, but often you will need to resort to
using a systemic insecticide (RogorŪ, Mavrik™ Folimat™ or Malathion), on old
and dense trees. Use the NIMBY Pyrethrum if you are prepared to spray every three days for
control.
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