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Pests & Diseases - Australia

sick lemon tree

10 years ago

A large limb was chopped off about a year ago and
it produced fruit shortly after as it should have but since then all this stuff happened. Dry looking leaves and tremendous swelling of many small branches (see photo)
and will not fruit. Can it be saved?

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Comment (1)

alisonoz_gw
10 years ago
yes but it needs some radical treatment. It's citrus gall-wasp. The damage they do to the branches causes all sorts of warping.
The little blighters may have already fled the coop, up north here they usually hatch around Sept and start breeding straight away and re-infect the same tree and others nearby, thru to about October.
There is some argument against fertilizing in late winter to avoid there being as much new material to lure them in early spring.
Most info recommends pruning off all the infected material and putting it in a garbage (don't compost or leave lying around) by the end of August so maybe in Vic you're not too late.
Citrus don't mind a heavy prune so go for it, and they try to re-shape it a bit, and give a good fertilize to get it sprouting again.
Read up as much as you can about future prevention of the problem. I don't know that there is anything new in spraying or such, you have to be able to deter or kill the wasps, once they lay their eggs the damage is on its way.
Just use a search engine with Citrus Gall Wasp and you will get lots of hits and see if you can find anything on the DPI websites.
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