Sickly Avocado Tree

[descodave]

We have an avocado tree that is about 8 years old (hasn’t given any edible Avos yet, but did fruit - but dropped fruit- in the last 2 years). Anyway, the poor tree has leaves that are mottled with brown & the undersides look covered in very small bugs of some sort; we don’t want to lose the tree…any suggestions for how to treat this? Thanks SO much in advance!

[Durian Fiend]

It's the avocado lace bug. Your tree will recover with new growth, though production will likely be diminished in the future with the continued onslaught of this pest expected to persist. Yes, it really (and literally) sucks. One of the most robust, beautiful and fruitful tree species has fallen victim to yet another imported pest.

[tawyna]

The property we bought has 40 verities of avo - all have same as yours. An imported pest .

[descodave]

Thanks for helping us identify the “culprit“! Is there any treatment for it?

[Or1on]

Maybe but how do you spray the underneath of all the leaves on a 20 foot avocado tree?  

It's been here in Puna on my trees for a couple years now and they still seem to fruit but definitely not as happy of a tree.  Since it's an insect there's lots of different spray treatments for them but then there's that accessibility issue.  Seems hopeless to me.  Just stuck with it, though you can battle it back for awhile.

[Kiana]

My friend was recently given a "systemic drench" treatment by the folks at Garden Exchange in downtown Hilo. You pour it into the ground around the tree line base once or twice a year. It gets absorbed into the tree tissue and the flies then absorb it. I have always found Garden Exchange to be a great resource for all things like this. Yes, it is a chemical, not organic.

Also, I was a Hawaii Master Gardener for a time and am still on their mailing list. They recently sent out a YouTube video on this subject, with an expert form Oahu discussing this in length. It's 38 minutes long, and I have not personally watched the entire segment as it's not a problem I need to deal with. My guess is there is great info on this avocado lacebug video, even though it's probably geared to help Master Gardener issues. (They have a help line where they answer questions from the public). Heres' the link to share: https://youtu.be/b28rUS-TmD4

[descodave]

Thankyou so much Kiana - really enjoyed that YouTube Video!

[descodave]

Just thought I’d mention that I heard a podcast where a man on Oahu, I think?, said he was planting flowers (sunflowers & others) between his avocado trees & this was helping with the lace bug problem, interesting…

[Obie]

We used to have a tree that would drop all of its leaves every time we had a big storm that would spray it with salt.

It didn't seem to harm the tree and it produced great avocados.

[Durian Fiend]

An alternative to systemic drench would be spraying with something like Bifen.