Mistletoe spray?
- Thread starter Eugene
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The only spray that i know that is recognized and liscenced here is a divergent of ethelyne(?spelling); that is used for gassing tomatoes off the vine to ripen them; but not giving that sweet sunripened taste to the fruit. Curiously here "Florel" is used as a growth inhibitor to wilt the leaves, make the berries abort, so it can't spread. It must be applied in warm temperature at a regional dependant window of time in the year to abort the berries. It should only be used on the mistletoe, not the tree, for it could cause wilting there too. In advanced cases i don't think you will have good luck with killing it in the tree, just aborting its berries, giving the plant a hard time, but it still comes back. Either spraying or shaving doesn't have to be done every year; just 2-3 year cycles. Christmas mistletoe has plastic white berries, for the berries are fatally toxic to people and pets. Some guys have gone up with a pump sprayer to individually spray the bunches, rather than chance overspray in the tree, this is best, for the tree at least!
Mistletoe is thee parasitic plant of the world's trees. According to the national foresty service nothing, devastates more timber wood than mistletoe; nothing in nature or man's doings. No fire, no disease out 'performs' it in this devastation. It is very tough to deal with, any point of of sprouting should be amputated about 2 feet from that point towards the roots, for complete control, for its roots can reach under the bark that far and regrow in developed bunches. Just shaving it, will stop it from fruiting for a year or two; but it will still suck on the tree, and grow back. It is spread by gravity and birds mostly, the sap in the seed is like super glue; sticking to wherever it falls, usually bathed in fertilizer to feed it till it finds another source to suck dry- the tree. i tell it like it is contageous; and is to some extent a community responsibility to cull it out; like pine borers here. Because that is the way i feel about it for the devastation i have seen by allowing them to spread unnecesarily. It is one of the few reason's i would knock on your door uninvited in some cases. It is a lot easier to sight out in the fall, winter when a tree is thin, sometimes being the only green thing on it.
Sometimes chasing it out of parts or a whole tree, leaves the tree stripped, or partilly bucked back. Sometimes i don't know whether to save the tree, introducing the scourges of overly aggressive trimming and compound the weaknesss of the mistletoe's activity with that treatment. Mistletoe can weaken massively leveraged parts of the tree as it sucks them dry of nutrition, making them very unsafe. i try to save trees, but there is a point.........
A while back there was a report of someone finding that if they could 'sausage wrap' each mistletoe plant, to starve it from light, withought getting a wet spot; you could get rid of it! i imagine you have to catch it when there is hardly in your tree for all that. Oh, did i mention, that you have to starve it from light, without developing a wet spot for 3 years? That is one tough competitor! Also, pretty hard to imagine keeping dry under all that wrapping in a tropical region.
Mistletoe is thee parasitic plant of the world's trees. According to the national foresty service nothing, devastates more timber wood than mistletoe; nothing in nature or man's doings. No fire, no disease out 'performs' it in this devastation. It is very tough to deal with, any point of of sprouting should be amputated about 2 feet from that point towards the roots, for complete control, for its roots can reach under the bark that far and regrow in developed bunches. Just shaving it, will stop it from fruiting for a year or two; but it will still suck on the tree, and grow back. It is spread by gravity and birds mostly, the sap in the seed is like super glue; sticking to wherever it falls, usually bathed in fertilizer to feed it till it finds another source to suck dry- the tree. i tell it like it is contageous; and is to some extent a community responsibility to cull it out; like pine borers here. Because that is the way i feel about it for the devastation i have seen by allowing them to spread unnecesarily. It is one of the few reason's i would knock on your door uninvited in some cases. It is a lot easier to sight out in the fall, winter when a tree is thin, sometimes being the only green thing on it.
Sometimes chasing it out of parts or a whole tree, leaves the tree stripped, or partilly bucked back. Sometimes i don't know whether to save the tree, introducing the scourges of overly aggressive trimming and compound the weaknesss of the mistletoe's activity with that treatment. Mistletoe can weaken massively leveraged parts of the tree as it sucks them dry of nutrition, making them very unsafe. i try to save trees, but there is a point.........
A while back there was a report of someone finding that if they could 'sausage wrap' each mistletoe plant, to starve it from light, withought getting a wet spot; you could get rid of it! i imagine you have to catch it when there is hardly in your tree for all that. Oh, did i mention, that you have to starve it from light, without developing a wet spot for 3 years? That is one tough competitor! Also, pretty hard to imagine keeping dry under all that wrapping in a tropical region.
