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spots on fig, white specks. Bisirri light

Good Morning Everyone,
so I recently went to Bisirri's and got both versions of his trees, one light one dark. I gave the the dark to mom as a gift, figuring at some point I will try my hand at rooting cuttings. Booth looked healthy and had visible signs of fig growth on the trees.

so after having it for about two weeks, I noticed the yellow splotchy spots thinking maybe it is from sun exposure or new growth. soon to find after reading up on my new found hobby here that it is more likely to be FMV. also some of the leafs are dwarfed, miss shaped, shiny, and slightly harder, but clearly not dead just leathery.

not discouraged, learning here that it is more common than not and the tree can still come to be a healthy producing tree, that is until I started noticing spots on the larger figs, nothing yet noticeable on the figlets. under closer inspection I can see little crystals/white flecks on the developed figs.

other than spraying a little neem oil on it I am just kind of at standstill with it, the tree is growing rapidly and seems to be a good producer.

any opinions, thoughts, or insight would be appreciated. I search and search but didn't see too much on the white flecks, or even spots on the figs just mostly about rust on leafs.

thanks

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I noticed this on a couple of my figs last night too and kind of filed it away in the back of  my mind.  It was on both fruit and leaves I think.  It was quite subtle and I wasn't too alarmed.  It almost looks like fig sap that splashed on the plant from pinching but it could be something else.  I'll check again tonight.

yeah i wish i could say it was from me pinching back the tree but i haven't removed any growth. going to attempt a air layer since i have a limb growing near the base of trunk at the soil. 

Hi,
You have stinging bugs (Palomena prasina for instance). The milk comes out of the wounds made by the insects. Look at the bottom fig. You can see the brown patches / wounds .
Time for some insect repellant.
I'm using stinging needle, citronella and mint (and any dried weed) tea.
It is smelly, but acts as a repellant and fertilizer.

I was starting to think something along those lines of insects. Only thing I've been seeing around the tree as far as bugs are is ants, and I have few baby praying mantis that must have hatched near by. as far as your mixture goes how are using it, are you sprinkling the herbs around the soil or making like a spray of some sort?

Hi,
I fill the watering can in the barrel and water the dirt and trunk and all on the tree .
Let that dry on the tree. For obvious reasons, I just avoid putting the liquid on fruits :) . 
If you got ants, you got aphids as ants feed on the mealy diner served by the tiny bugs.

Ok I'll give that a try. Thank you!

Yes, I am also now thinking it is microscopic insects.  However, when I brush away the white specks I don't see any damage to the leaf or stem.  So I'm not really concerned about tissue damage but they could be a vector for spreading diseases such as fmv.  Does anyone know if mites cause these white specks to form?

pretty clear that it is insect punctures. jdsfrance I tried your recipe for bug spray but not sure if it's working, got a pretty neat pic of the baby mantis that hasn't left fig tree.
20150615_193644.jpg 


mantis.jpg 


Some of my figs are showing this insect damage also.  It's interesting that some show essentially no damage, a few with very minor damage, and a couple with more severe damage.

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Chris, have you had any luck treating your figs for these insects.  Do you think the critter shown in post #10 is what is causing the damage?  Any idea what kind of bug that is?

Edit: nevermind, I see now that it is a praying mantis.  It's always a good sign to see one of those around.

no still no luck, in fact I went to Bill's figs last weekend and picked up a Stella, and showed him the pictures and he was completely baffled and thought maybe a fungus and said he never seen that on any of his trees before. sure enough after 4 days owning my new Stella one out of the three figs on tree already is showing three spots as the same as my Bisirri. the only tree I have not affected is my Celeste but I think it has to do with all the figs being to premature for any insect to bother with them yet. I don't even know where to start, only thing I'm thinking of trying is those little mesh bags I see people here using to protect the figs.

the picture of the bug is actually a baby praying mantis, I have a few living in the Bisirri but I keep hearing that they will actually eat the bugs doing damage so I have no clue here.

your pictures do look pretty much identical 

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