What is this black sooty deposit

Hi All
I have a pomegranate tree in my garden in Spain, the leaves are coverd with a black sooty deposit, it is not giving us any fruit any more, the flowers just fall, I have sprayed it with fungicide a few times but no joy, the new growth starts with lovely shiny leaves but gradually they turn black with soot like stuff.
Any ideas please.
regards
ikemalik:(

 

Hello ikemalik and welcome to GC.

I shall be interested in any response you get to this question as I had a Bay Tree (potted on my kitchen patio) which every year got sooty mould. Each year I dutifully cleaned the leaves with soapy water but to no avail. This summer I gave the tree to a friend who has planted it in his garden to see if it recouperates.

I was told by a landscaping friend (of 29 years here) that it was caused by the black olive tree on the side of my kitchen patio. He could not give me any technical reasoning and I cannot find anything on the net. The only link I could find alluding to such was this ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sooty_mold so perhaps the olive oil residue was causing my problem. Maybe the pomegrante tree itself exudes the sticky substance causing it? I have not seen this on pomegranite trees here though.

Let's hope someone new to the forum has an answer ... I did ask this question here some years ago.

 

Well I don't know anything about pomegranite's, but the photo looks like sooty mould. This can be quite severe on some shrubs/trees. It is usually associated with sucking insects, such as aphids - they excrete a sticky fluid known as honey dew and this mould grows on it. If it is sooty mould, you need to wash it off using mild detergent - dilute washing up liquid. If it's bad enough, it could have caused the problems you mentioned. Once it's all clean and shiny again...watch out for any sort of sucking pest. Control them and you shouldn't get the mould.
Regular washing with dilute soap would control both the aphids and the sooty deposit.

 

Another sorce is Scale Insects on the underside of the leaves.

The best way to remove them is with cotton wool with meths on it and wipe the underside of the leaves. Alternatively use a soft soap spray under the leaves this is organic and stops the insects breathing,


Trevor

 

Knowing where I live :DOH: and knowing where ikemalik the OP's tree is, I think I know what the problem is which is what I said originally ... black sooty mould. I have said that I treated my bay tree with soapy water and actually washed all the leaves by hand every year and hosed it continuously ... it only relieves the immediate problem, not forever. We are not talking about small garden trees in this part of the world but normal sized fruiting trees so you cannot treat them as one does a houseplant. Trevor, I am speaking to you here regarding cotton buds and meths ... do you think you can go out with cotton buds and meths and wipe every leaf down ...

Although I find it most peculiar, I am sure my long-time gardening friend is correct to some extent that the problem can be caused by a tree/shrub nearby that has a sticky problem and drops its substance onto something else nearby that is susceptible to such thus causing the sooty mould problem.

 

One week on from my last posting I have been to our friends house who now have my Bay Tree. I was stunned at the beauty .. it had no sooty mould and was covered in new growth and my friend had actually taken some cuttings and put near the base which looked healthy. I could not believe it was the one I had given them ...

They offered it back to me but after eight years of the hassle of wiping the leaves off I said no but I would take a rooted babe. You just had to see it to believe it, honestly.

 

Victoria, if you want to be organic you must put up with such small inconvieniences as sooty mould.:D

Ikemalik its as Julie said, sooty mould.
Not a real problem in itself just unsightly.
Kill the pest producing the "honey dew", (which the pest produces), and the problem goes away.

In my view a systemic insecticide is best, applied according to makers instructions, in this case one for edible plants.

 

Hiya Pete .. I did say in my first posting that it was Sooty Mould.

I actually had the offending olive tree (which is not mine but in the dry stone wall attached to my house and overhanging my kitchen roof .. the tree that is, not the stone wall) cut back on Tuesday as the sticky substance was not only going all over my kitchen patio but coming down through my cooker chinmney and I was getting this sticky mess plus olives all over my kitchen counters. I have a typical Med cooking 'hood' where an electrical vent in not needed, it just draws steam up naturally ... and brings things down if they happen to be up and over the chimney ...




The offending tree is at the end of the kitchen wall on the right ... and the bay tree is on the right front ...



These pictures were a couple of years ago and things have grown massively since then.

PS Nothing to do with it, but that Canary Palm in the background no longer exists ... killed within months by the monster bug ...

 

Thank you so much folks

Hi everyone
Thank you very much for your ideas and suggestions, I am going back to Spain shortly and I will try both the soapy water spray and the systemic insecticide spray, I am also going to use the grease bands, hopefully the new growth will stay healthy , I will keep you posted with the progress, thanks again everyone.
regards

 

To treat the sooty mould, firstly spray with a fungicide to kill the spoors THEN wash it off, once the mould has been sprayed it can be washed off with plain water. Then, as Pete says, spray with a systemic insecticide to destroy the aphids.

 

Hi everyone
Belated happy new year.
Just to update you, I sprayed the tree with soapy water, although the tree is bare at the moment , the branches look nice and clean, I have also tied greasebands around the trunk,I will spray the systemic insecticide once the leaves are back, hopefully this should cure the problem, I will keep you posted of the progress, thanks again everyone, Victoria I like your photos.
Regards
It is indeed a hard life being retired