NEEM OIL | Citrus Leaf Curl (Miners), Banana Diseases, Fig Mosaic + Cool Oily Plants w/ IV Organic

My name is Charles Malachy, biologist and plant expert with Ivory Ganks, where we grow cool plants and today we're going to be talking about the value of horticultural oils and specifically the value of neem oil in the home garden. Come and follow me real quick. You'll see over here to my left this native garden, which I've got, which I highly encourage and I always tell people to dedicate at least 5-10% of your garden to growing native plants and I'll tell you why in just a minute. And then we're going to pass by my Meyer lemons. Check out all of these lemons in here, check this out. And here we are still at the first week of June. Take a look at all of these blossoms, still blooming and smaller blossoms and fruit, such a highly productive specimen and very important consideration in the home garden if you're looking for a lemon tree, the improved Meyer lemon variety. Behind me are the native plants and there's going to be other areas you're going to notice throughout the garden as I point out a few of the trees that are suffering from different diseases that I want to share with you that we're going to control immediately here today. But over here I've got my native plants, which include California poppies, bluebells, these purple flowers are sage, the red flowers that are in the background are known as California fuchsia. And no matter where you live in the world, try to find out what those plants are that are native to your area to invite those pollinators. We're not just talking about the monarch butterfly or hummingbirds and bees, but all of those pollinators that will come down and visit these flowers and then pollinate the other fruit trees and vegetables you may have in your garden as well. Consider that. So in this video we're going to discuss all of these various products that can be used in your garden. The chemical as well as the organics and naturally in the organic garden we're going to be focusing on the organic solutions, but I want to caution you on some of these things while we're still early in the season and you don't end up damaging your products using these horticultural oils. The first thing we're going to discuss is citrus leafminer, secondly we're going to talk about some type of banana disease that's affecting the ability of the plant to put out some new leaves, and the last one is going to be on fig mosaic virus. So the first one, citrus leafminer, let me show you what that looks like, follow me. If you zoom in over here you can notice that, and actually if you back up real quick just so you can get a perspective of what's happening here. So this here is one of the standard varieties of the improved Meyer lemons and this is one of three varieties of lemons we have growing in our garden, the others being the Lisbon as well as the Eureka lemon. But here we've got the improved Meyer lemon and you can notice that it's got a whole bunch of new growth that's come out in now the month of June, and with the new growth what happens starting in late spring, sometimes as early as late spring being April, May, to all the way in October typically this issue stops, is a phenomenon known as citrus leafminer. And if you come in a little closer this is what the evidence is of the citrus leafminer, if you take a look in here, you can see those tunnels that are zigzagging back and forth, we'll remove that so I can actually point this out a little bit more clearly. I don't know if you want to tap on the screen to make sure it's super clear, but you can see that the tunnels are going back and forth and what it is is a caterpillar that lives below the surface as well as, you can notice on this side it hasn't even penetrated on the underside of the leaf, so it's living right under the waxy surface of the leaf so it's protected from predators such as wasps that may consume it otherwise, and if we take a look right in here, you can actually see the caterpillar, the larva, wiggling right under there. I'm hoping you can capture that. It's moving a lot. So over here are just a few examples of what the citrus leafminer looks like. If you come in a little closer, this was the leaf that we just picked and when it comes to disposing of it, you're going to want to throw it away and not recycle it into your compost and bring it back into your garden. This here is a leaf from last year and if you take a look, you've still got the evidence of the tunnels, the leafminers that have gone through. Again, very little evidence on the underside of the leaf even though sometimes it may be more evident on the underside of the leaf, but you can see the tunnels that are still there and the leaf is going to be scarred until the leaf ultimately drops and gets replaced with the new flesh of growth and this here is a new leaf as well that's been damaged by the citrus leafminer. The issue with controlling your leafminer, there's still about a dozen more leaves that I found throughout these trees that are affected by the citrus leafminer and most of the research is going to support the fact that it's more of a cosmetic issue than an issue that can potentially affect the health of the plant. Let me share with you what the cosmetics are. Check this out. So if we take a look in here, you'll notice here's another bundle of at least a dozen if not two dozen flowers, but you'll notice in here, this leaf is damaged by citrus leafminer, this leaf is damaged by citrus leafminer, this leaf is damaged by citrus leafminer and right now it may just look like citrus leaf curl, but if you open it up, those tunnels are still in there. You can still see the evidence of those leafminers on the underside of the leaf more so than on the top. And let's take a look at this one too. Here, I'll even pull it off so we can see that together. Check out those tunnels. Look at all of that. And there's one more example. Check this out. And then here's another example right here. If we take a look at this, again, another beautiful mass of flowers and you can see the little fruit, but check out the leaves. All these young leaves have been affected by the citrus leafminer. Look at those tunnels and on this one as well. So again, it's going to result in a lot of these leaves looking very disfigured and let's discuss that a little bit more over there. So when your plants are young, the effects of a citrus leafminer can actually be devastating and potentially life-threatening. On the younger leaves, imagine all of those leaves which are the light engines, the engines for creating photosynthesis, which is the process of making the sugars that will invigorate the roots, support more plant growth, support the fruit as well. And again, if we're dealing with a young plant where it only has 10 leaves and all 10 leaves are affected by the citrus leafminer, that can affect its ability to thrive and succeed. However, on a larger tree such as the ones we just saw, the effect of the citrus leafminer is minor, assuming that it's not affecting every single one of the leaves, but that's a possibility as well. Secondly, there's another disease known as citrus greening, which is caused by insects that insert its waste, or they're basically like vectors for viruses that result in citrus greening. And one of the ways of remediating citrus greening on your fruit trees is by controlling the pest. Similarly, you're going to want to control the citrus leafminers. By having the citrus leafminers living between the epidermis and the underdermis of the leaf, the citrus leafminers are tunneling back and forth and leaving a lot of waste within the living tissues of the plant, and that cannot be healthy for the plant. And therefore, in my opinion, I would recommend that you control and treat the citrus leafminer situation than allowing it to exist within your citrus trees. So to do so, we're going to talk about now a chemical alternative as well as the organic alternative for controlling the citrus leafminer. Your chemical alternatives are a couple of products such as these. Chemical options are products such as these. This one here is Spectrum, or Spectracide, and the second one over here is Bear. And the Spectracide product, it shows that it has up to two months of control and can kill as many as 180 listed insects, kills both above and below ground insects. And then another product such as this one here, it goes two-way formula, kills surface insects in 24 hours, kills insects for up to three months. So this is even longer lasting, and it's rainproof. And again, it will pretty much wipe out your soil biology, which is what we've been working so hard in creating our compost and doing things organically in the garden for this product to then go and wipe out everything that is living both below and above the surface. So what we're going to do instead is we're going to use products such as this. And this is something I've got in my garage, is a product such as neem oil. Neem oil over here, it says ingredients 100%, pure natural neem oils, essential oils, expeller pressed from this indica seeds and origin from India, and this is actually where the neem tree originated from. And it says, you know, great for drying damaged skin, also has antifungal properties, and tested for purity, and we're not using this for our skin, nor for, so we're not using this for, you know, drying damaged skin, but the antifungal property is going to be important when we visit our banana plant, which is going to be next, as well as for our fig tree, may also gain some benefit from that. So another product which also uses neem oil is this, and here's GardenSafe. This is actually a more manageable size, it comes in a pint size container, and it shows the value of what neem can do, aside from that large container where we saw that it was a fungicide, it's also an insecticide, it's also a miticide, and another product that I found that also has some oils is this one here made by Bonite. This is all season spray, the active ingredient in this product, hopefully you can zoom in here, is called mineral oil, 98% of the contents is a mineral oil. So now when it comes to using mineral oils, horticultural oils in your garden, the way most of these products are being used is to smother the insect. What happens, just imagine you're using any other oil, you can even possibly use, and again, make sure you do your research and you measure the solutions accordingly, but even corn oil and soybean oil, and all these oils that you can pick up from your local grocery store could, I'm not saying it is, but it could potentially work in your garden as well. The goal with most of these oils is to smother the insects, to smother the eggs, to smother the larvae, and what you're doing is you're putting these oils in a container like this, which is our spray container, our pressurized spray container, and we're going to basically spray the plant with these oils that are going to affect the insects. What neem oil does different than all of the other horticultural oils, and if there's one oil of all of the garden oils that can be used, neem oil is the true miracle oil in the garden. What neem oil does for your plants is, in addition to smothering the insects, any insects that consume the product, it'll actually halt and stop their growth. For example, it won't be able to emerge from egg to larva, or from larva to nymph, or from nymph to adult. It basically prevents it from basically going through their growth stages. So neem oil inhibits the ability of insects to grow, and again, once the insects consume it, the effects on the insect are far greater than any other horticultural oil that I've done my research on, and hence the reason for using neem oil in today's project. So what we're going to do now is we're just going to take our container here, we added about a gallon of water, and we're going to take just a tablespoon or two of the neem oil to this. When it comes to the time of day for applying your neem oil, if you take a look in here, you can actually see the oils that are floating on top of the water, and what many gardeners will also do is they'll use a garden soap to help with the emulsifying of the oils with the water, but instead of doing that and adding any other ingredients, as I'm using 100% pure neem oil, is I'm just going to have to continuously shake the solution as I'm applying it to the trees, and another very important tip when it comes to using garden oils in your garden is to make sure that you do it after your daytime temperatures start cooling. It's critical, as if you start applying these oils in the morning, it's just going to intensify the heat very quickly on the plant and potentially cause leaf damage, fruit damage, and any other surfaces, including the bark, that have these oils with sun directly hitting it, it's going to burn them extra hard, so it's important, as most of these directions will read when it comes to horticultural oils, is to apply them in the later afternoon, and even closer to evening hours to make sure that the risk of any bees coming into contact with the oils is also minimized as well. So let's continue. So now when applying the product, you're going to want to apply it to the surface of the leaf, and you can see, even all the fruit are getting these oils on it, so we're going to apply it to the surface, as well as we're going to go underneath the leaf, and also spray the undersides as well. Check out all of these young fruit. So the second plant that had issues and is suffering from some type of disease is this Manzano banana. This leaf that's blocking me is from the Goldfinger variety of banana, this here is the Manzano, and you can see that this shoot of growth that was supposed to be going up has come down, and this is the third time in the last month that it tried putting out a leaf, and the leaf would just fall out, and what's happening from examination is that there's some type of disease within the center of this plant, whether it be fungal, bacteria, and I've even seen instances of worms and other larger insects within the trunk of the plant, and just consuming the soft, tender growth that's within the tree, and preventing it from coming out with vigor and health. So what we're going to do in this case is we're going to do the same thing and apply the neem oil from the highest point, and then we're going to also saturate each of these corners with neem oil in hopes of getting that neem oil into the central part of the trunk, and hopefully get that fungal disease or that pest disease that's within the plant under control until the plant continues to grow through the rest of summer, which is the fastest growing period for these bananas, and unfortunately this entire year it hasn't been able to push out a healthy leaf as the ice cream banana behind you has been able to, and let me share that with you real quick. So here I am now at the base of the ice cream banana plant, and when you take a look up, you'll notice that all of those shredded leaves, all those leaves that are torn apart are last year's growth, but all of the new leaves, take a look again, all of those leaves that are intact are all leaves that came out in just the last 30 days only, and again here we are the first week of June, and it's put out that much growth in just the last 30 days. One other thing I've got to share with you is check out these beautiful passion fruits, and we've also got some beautiful passion flowers here, look how small they are. This one here just got started a couple of days ago, this one here about two or three weeks ago, these are the purple passion, and I found a flower, if you come in a little closer you can see it. Check out those beautiful flowers, it's like no other. And one other thing while I've got you here in the garden, check out these jalaconias, such a beautiful tropical effect between all of these banana trees, beautiful addition, the hummingbirds just love it. Also check out all of these beautiful California native plants that we've also got here to my left. Now we're just going to start spraying with our sprayer, we're going to go right into the nodes of each of the leaves, and start soaking it with the leaf, with the neem oil mixture that we just made. It's also important to get at the base of every single leaf around the entire plant, the goal is to cure any diseases that might be underlying these leaves. So we're going to just basically spray right into each of these corners, if you come in a little closer you'll get a better visual of what's happening. You can step right here, and we'll come in with our spray gun like so, and we're just going to spray right in there and just saturate until it basically leaks out. So if we didn't do all of this for the plant, we may as well just remove it. If there's a disease that's underlying the center of this banana plant, then the chances are it's going to continue to perpetuate as the temperatures continuously warm up, and the plant's not going to be able to grow and thrive through all of that disease. This is the third leaf that's put out that's come down unsuccessfully, so if that's going to be the pattern, it may be a better practice to just remove this parent plant and give these younger sucker plants, or these pups, the chance at growing more vigorously this year with the chance of enjoying bananas by next year. I'm doing these videos because I've learned so much from you guys too. When I published my last update on this 5-in-1 fig tree, one of you wrote, what do you do about fig tree mosaic virus, and I'm like, what are you talking about, and I came back and sure enough, what I thought was just a nutrient deficiency is the mosaic virus on my fig. Check this out over here. If you come in a little closer and you take a look at these leaves, you'll see that this is not just a deficiency. Take a look at the different coloration within that leaf between the yellows, the dark greens, and the light greens. Here's another example up here, not as noticeable. Here's another one, this young leaf, and they're kind of disfigured as well, and what I've noticed among this as well is that when the growth is coming out, it's not coming out with much health. There's some type of disease that's affecting it, and what I found that's most interesting, and there's a couple zones on it as well, where I found these little scar tissue with pus coming out of it as well, right at my fingertip, what I thought were like eggs. I tried looking at it under a microscope, which I have here at home, and it really looks more like a sap than any type of insect eggs. So what the fig tree mosaic virus is, is just like I said, a virus, and it's a virus that most people believe is transmitted by way of a mite, and typically, again, through the process of grafting. If you take a look over here, you can see my graft union, and this here, again, is the root stock. So you can see it comes from the bottom, and we've severely pruned it to create these two branches that then created a couple more branches, and we grafted onto one of the branches the Chicago Hardy Bride, and you can see how healthy and vigorous, and look at the color of it compared to the Black Mission variety, which has got this mosaic pattern happening with some of the older leaves. The new growth is coming out better, but there is some issue with even the new growth as well on this particular zone, so we're going to try to cure and try to mitigate those issues as well. Take a look at the graft union as well. You can see where we grafted, and many people also attribute the mosaic virus to grafting, and that's an entryway for these viruses to then affect and harm the plant, and what we used to seal any exposure is we used a product over here called Ivory Organic, which is a 3-in-1 plant guard, protection against damaging sunburned insects and rodents, and it's registered material for use in organic agriculture, and on the topic of horticultural oils, this one here has seven in it, castor oil, cinnamon oil, clove oil, cedarwood oil, garlic oil, peppermint oil, and rosemary oil, and each of these plants independently have elements and compounds within them that naturally repel rodents as well as insects from harming the plant, and when it comes to mitigating the mosaic virus on this fig tree, what we're going to have to do is go to the source, which is the mite. If, in fact, it's a mite, what we're going to have to do is control the mites, and what facilitates and aids in the control of mites is neem oil. Horticultural oils will work as well, but in this example, we're going to be using neem oil, so what we're going to do here is take our spray bottle, add a little more pressure, shake it thoroughly, and spray, and notice when we're spraying, we're not spraying the entire plant. This is the only graft that's affected by the mosaic virus. The other four cuttings are still healthy and in good condition, and there's no reason to treat or control any of the biology that's happening naturally in the garden, other than controlling the affected site, and so again, we're going to continue spraying the upper part of the leaves, as well as the lower part of the leaves, as well as the graft union. So we're back here where we started, the improved Meyer lemon tree. Another important tip that many of you have asked is, how often do I apply it, and where do I apply it, and in regards to the application, the leaf miners are only going to affect it with the tender new growth of the plant, so take a look over here. This here is the new growth, and these leaves down below are from earlier this year, which have since hardened, and very unlikely to be affected by the leaf miners, so when applying the spray, I should really be just focusing on the new growth, and if there isn't new growth on your citrus, then guess what? You don't have to spray. Wait until that flush of growth comes out, and then you can start protecting it from there. Many of my gardening friends will add their organic horticultural oils as early as March and April, and before there's any visual sign of leaf miner within the garden, they'll start applying the products every two to three weeks, throughout the entire growing season, whether or not there's growth, whether or not there's leaf miners or not, just in anticipation for their arrival, they just start treating to help mitigate, and therefore, the goal is to never see the leaf miners on their plants. That's one practice. Since it's me providing the education to this video, in my opinion, watch your plants and apply it as needed. Do not be spraying your plants unnecessarily and affecting the biology that's naturally happening in your garden, unless it's something you desire in regards to making sure that not one leaf ever gets affected, and you're gonna continue dumping organic products on your plants on a schedule throughout the entire growing season. Again, in my opinion, I like to watch it. If there's significant damage, as I'm watching to one of the stems over here, which I'll show you in just a minute, what I'm gonna do is just prune it off, and the rest of my growth, as you can see, the leaves are 99% beautiful, and what I'm doing is I'm visiting my garden every day, if not once every few days, and I'm trying to spot check, and I'm looking for certain issues, and if I find it, then I'm gonna treat it, and then I'm gonna wait a few weeks, and then I'm gonna continue spotting it and watching it from now, and citrus leaf minor is an issue all the way until October. So let me point out one of the issues over here where I found a stem that can be entirely removed as a result of damaging leaf minor. Check these out. So this here is some new growth that came out. The leaves are beginning to curl. This phenomenon, I'm not sure if I mentioned it already, it's known as citrus leaf curl, is another name this goes by, but if the leaves are damaged, you can simply just cut them off, and the plant will create another flush of growth, and hopefully next time you'll be prepared for, you know, to basically spray those leaves and protect them from the citrus leaf minor. And again, make sure you dispose of any of that waste in your black recycling bin, making sure that none of that comes into contact with your garden, nor the green recycling process. Now, how often do I need to apply the products? Unfortunately, when it comes to organics, these products are not long-lasting and not long-lived. So most of these products, and you'll read the label directions, will say to apply it every 7 days, every 10 days, every 14 days, or every 21 days, but they do not last months like the chemical alternatives. So for organics, you're going to have to apply a lot more frequently, but again, that's the cost and your investment in growing things organically. So many of you ask, why do things organically, which are going to require treatments throughout the entire growing season, on average every 2, 3, maybe every 4 weeks, compared to these chemical alternatives, which it's going to be one application and you're done. Aside from wiping out the biology within your garden is you're dealing with products that are also hazardous to human health. Check these out over here on the back of these labels, both of them read, without even going into much detail, it says, precautionary statements, it says, hazards to human and domestic animals. And if we take a look at the next product over here, it says right here on the back, precautionary statement, caution, hazards to human and domestic animals. These are two chemical alternatives that are truly poison, poisonous to humans, poisonous to animals, and it's going to wipe out, one of these products says, 180 plus insects. When we know we need a balance of both predators and prey, you need the aphids to feed the preying mantis. So you need a good balance in your garden, compared to using the organics. And this here, as we mentioned earlier, you can take a look here on the label, it says, it says over here, condition, great for dry or damaged skin, also has anti-fungal properties. And this here is neem oil. Obviously take a look at the label and use your label as directed, as some of these other neem based products may not say to use it on your hair or your skin. These here are specifically formulated for garden use. But again, just making a point on how powerful some of these organic, natural, plant-derived systems can work within your garden to provide you the protection you're seeking, so that you have and maximize your fruit production within your garden this growing season. I'm hoping you've watched this to the end, as applying these garden oils will elevate the temperature of your plants, even on the second day. You've got all of these oils that are now on the surface of the plant, and imagine all this oil on your skin, if you went to the beach and you're using, instead of a sunblock, you're using a tanning oil, it's going to heat up your skin, it's going to heat up your body and it is going to lead to some degree of burn, depending on the temperature the following day. Check out this leaf over here, and check out all of that shine that's been created by the spray of the oils on it. What we're going to do, in my practice, is once you apply your horticultural oils, the evening before, the following morning, I like to come out with my product, which is this, which is Ivory Organics, a 3-in-1 plant guard, where it's ready-to-use spray, again, protection against sunburn, and that's the primary defense I'm using it for in this application in today's video, is to basically cool off the entire plant, like so. This is something, again, I'll do the following day after the plant's had an opportunity to absorb the product on the leaves, and that the insects have had an opportunity to consume the neem oil, and it still has the opportunity to do so, but what we've done now, and if you take a look, we've now just created an organic sunblock shield that's going to keep the plant several degrees cooler. Check out these fruit as well. You can see that the Ivory Organics is on there as well, keeping the plants cool and preventing the risk of sunburned fruit, which is a real phenomenon, and only gets amplified with the application of oils. It's beautiful. If you've enjoyed this educational video by Ivory Organics, be sure to like it, and most importantly, by subscribing below, you'll be connected to this, as well as all the other educational gardening videos by Ivory Organics. Thanks again for watching, and happy gardening.