r/arboriculture 21d ago

Young oak not looking good

Hey, I will try to describe this as much as I can as english is not my native language.

For starters : Photo 1 : is on top of the leaves Photo 2 : is under the leaves Photo 3 : is some insect I could see on some of the leaves (we can see some on photo 2 as well).

Most of the leaves under attack seem to be on top of the tree. They look like small bright yellow punctures. Under them are lots of little bright red things (photo taken in the evening so they don't look so bright) that if you rub your finger on it you get some of this red thing. Some white insects (not a lot) could be found on the leaves, under they seem to be chysalis (like the one near my finger on photo 2).

I would like to know what these are and what can be done to take measures and help the tree.

I have 2 ideas (a red spider mite or mealybugs from what I could find) but couldn't find some definitve answer and not a single picture came close to what I have.

I am south of France, the temperature is 36°C on the afternoon, 20°C the morning and night. Very hot and dry. We water it everyday.

Thanks in advance.

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u/Accurate-Sprinkles-4 21d ago

that looks like Spider mite damage

1

u/Elaeus 21d ago

Thanks, I found that we can't see it with a naked eye but we clearly can see some red things and there are no webs anywhere on the tree. What can I do to efficiently destroy this infestation?

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u/AvaHomolka 21d ago edited 21d ago

You can actually spray the mites off the leaves with a water hose with a pressure nozzle. Make sure to get the bottoms of the leaves. Do this after dark every week or so to every plant affected until all the mites & their eggs are gone. They will come back & you will need to do this again next year. Ps mites love your underwatered and/or overfertilized trees.

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u/Elaeus 21d ago

Ok thanks a lot, we will start tomorrow. The tree is regularly watered because of the climate conditions and we are in the middle of nature, we don't utilize any fertilizer, we do it old school.