ORGANIC CONTROL OF sooty mould
A lot of people wonder what the black stuff is that they sometimes find on the trunks, branches, leaves and fruit of some garden plants and trees and also in some of our native forests. It’s called sooty mould, because of its colour, and is caused by a number of different microfungi, including Capnodium, Alternaria and Cladosporium spp. They quickly colonise the sticky, sugary secretions found on some plants from the feeding activity of a number of different sap-sucking insect species on them.
Also, some plants including citrus trees can secrete sugary solutions naturally. These secretions, called honeydew, are very sweet and an ideal medium on which these fungi can flourish.
Ants farming insects
A sign that you have an insect problem is that you may see ants running up and down your plants. If you turn the leaves over, or look carefully on the rest of the plant, you might find a range of sap-feeding insects hiding there. They might include aphids, whitefly, mealybugs, scales or even mites (mites are not insects but belong
