Hi Everyone, This is my first posting. I recently bought my home and just discovered a nasty infestation of wooley adelgid on the hemlocks that surround my yard. I read that I can treat this with "dormant" oil april-may and "summer" oil or insecticidal soap july-sept I am a long time organic gardener, want to save my trees and would prefer to do it organically ( can't bear the idea of spraying chems and killing the many resident birds in the trees! ) can anyone fill me in on what dormant oil is vs summer oil ( are they both just horticultural oil?)do these oils hurt beneficials too, birds, etc? are these solutions organic? any other organic solutions out there? Thanks so much!
Thank you for the info on the nasty hemlock bug. One more question if anyone knows: I need to prune these trees and I don't want to further spread the wooley beast: anyone know if I should burn the branches or bag them up in plastic bags and throw them out? I have a compost pile but it isn't very hot so I think it would be a bad idea to put the pruned branches there.
Never heard of them, so I'd play it safest. Prune, bag (maybe double bag?) & disinfect pruning tools, between each cut. Just dip them in a cup of the disinfectant. And, welcome to our fourm & glad that you've been going the OG way for so long, we make the planet a healther place to be! Here's a link to more info on wooley adelgid. This is jsut done on a search engine, so not all w/be organic. But, I'm sure all w/ be informative! http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/web/%2522wooley%2Badelgid%2B%2522
Evil succeeds when good people do nothing. No trees were killed or animals harmed in the sending of this message; however a great many electrons were horribly inconvenienced. Farm's blog: http://allnaturalsimplelife.blogspot.com/
Posts: 567 | Location: SoCal Zone 11. MO Zone 6 | Registered: February 11, 2002
"summer" oils, or what were once called "superior" oils, are simply more highly refined horticultural oils, or they could be vegetable, but don't need to be, oils. You would only use horticultural oils, aka dormant oils, when the trees are dormant, but the superior oils, or summer oils, can be used during the growing season, if done carefully since improper application can easily casue leaf burn.
Thank you everyone for all the great info and support. I have checked out the websites and did some googling. The summer oil application only said to be very thorough and fully cover the infected plant-never mentioned an actual dose ( I suppose the bottle would? ) nor was there mention of leaf burn so that is good to know. I have some time because apparently the best time to treat is mid-July to mid sept. organic is always the way to grow so I am thrilled to finally get on this website- I've subscribed to OG for many years but never thought to check out their site-so happy I did!
To answer Jackie's question: what took me so long to come to this website: I am a bit of an limited-media hippie ( no TV,no cable) and until the laptop appeared: limited internet access. It honestly never occured to me that the website could be so cool so I just never dropped in until last week! I am in a new home having to establish the gardens from scratch and dealing with some heavy duty clay issues-yes in the fertile pioneer valley my neighborhood is the clay side of the Ct river! Just want to pass on that among the many soil ammendments ( old leaves,gypsum,organic moo doo, organic top soil) I am using someone recommended organic green sand- I really like how easily it worked into the stubborn clay ( this clay is brick-when lobbed across the driveway the clods bounce..ping...ping...ping and roll to a stop intact; I used a mountaineering axe to bust up the pavement hard ground-worked like a charm and I am sure the neighbors enjoyed the spectacle)
You may want to contact your state agricultural station to help with the adelgid problem. A very serious pest that has destroyed most of the Hemlocks in Connecticut! Prudent spraying is a must - if you want to save the trees.
so I just never dropped in until last week!
