Brug. leaves wilting on the ends.

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

Hi all, I've just noticed my Brug's leaves have started wilting on the ends. Any suggestions? Cheers.

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

Maybe I'm killing it with kindness? Should I try flush some fertiliser out? I only used seasol.

[space cadet swami]

maybe 1/2 dose next time PS...I wouldn't stress too much.

Brugs love water, so make sure u don't let it dry out...

Wait until the insects find out u've got a brug in ur garden...

[bullit]

bugz on ya brugz

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

I've had to put pellets down EVERYWHERE.

[lhb2444]

My brugs just get raped daily and there appears to be nothing I can do about it Pellets aren't good either as my staffy eats anything he can.

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

I have all my plants out the front where the dog can't get them. If the pellets don't work I might have to put them into the greenhouse.

[gerbil]

It's hard to tell from the photo, but it does look like you potentially have spider mite, but it could just be the grainy nature of the photo.

Seasol isn't really a fertiliser, it's generally referred by people as a soil tonic or amendment, they flog it with their nutrient powerfeed, not to say you need to use powerfeed, but if you are only using seasol, you will need to add some sort of nutrients in whatever form suits your needs and growing style, chook pellets, blood and bone, composts, manures etc. Brugs can be very heavy feeders.

http://www.seasol.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=118

I think you could possibly be overwatering, tip dieback is a common symptom as are leaves drooping down, but it's not like a dehydrated droop, more of a rigid droop with washed out looking leaves with most green sitting the main growth tips and axillary shoots, your bottom one seems to be displaying this, as is common starting from the base up.

again, it's hard to tell from the picture, but your plant does look quite washed out (hungry), it can be from overwatering causing lack of nutrient uptake/root damage/flushing of nutrient from the medium, or possibly lack of nutrient in the medium from simply using it up or a combo of the lot.

Brugs do love water as has been mentioned, though it is a small plant and a small pot, so you are possibly keeping it too wet and starving the roots of oxygen. From what i've heard it's been really hot in WA lately so it's possible you aren't getting good enough wet/dry cycles for root development, not that you want brugs to dry out, but you don't want it anaerobic and sopping wet all the time, and a small pot and high temps can cause poor root development from the need of constant heavy watering.

Brugs are very prone to pests, though it can also be correlated with sick plants, improve root health to improve above ground health which should reduce pest issues, be careful with feeding too heavy as this can also create weak plants even though they are vigorous and 'healthy'. If they are being done by snails and slugs (which I assume why you've got the pellets) you can use alternates like physical barriers of sawdust, copper, horticultural grade diatomaceous earth. For leaf munching fellas there are things like bacterial sprays like dipel but i think success has replaced that these days. If you want to use chems or biological / organic options, do your research and decide what you think is best, but they are best minimised in all cases, working on healthy roots and ecosystem is the primary focus, chems/biological natural or not can still kill beneficial insects, fungi etc.

Edited April 11, 2013 by gerbil

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

Cheers gerbil. I'm down south at the moment so I'm not too worried about the warm weather (we're having maximum of 20 at the moment). I put some blood and bone on it yesterday and applied some seasol as well. I'll put it in the greenhouse and keep an eye on it. If it is mites what can I use to remedy it?

[gerbil]

When my brugs get really bad, I usually just hack them up, cut back the tips and remove the infested foliage, improve the soil and growing environment. From memory mites like a dry hot environment, so reducing drying winds, and giving the foliage a hose down can be beneficial. Knocking them off with a hose is good, and then giving them a mist with a hose fogger nozzle is good too, but if the environment is conducive, they will be back in force and it's not really feasible to be hosing the shit out of them constantly, that's not my sort of gardening, but appropriate in context.

Have never really treated them with anything, but if I have had pressing mite issues on plants i've very rarely used yates natrasoap, which is potassium salts of fatty acids from memory. There are lots of organic, natural options these days with things like white oils, neems etc which i have no experience with and should be researched to determine the appropriateness for a given insect.

I avoid spraying as much as possible and work on the soil, overall plant robustness and growing environment.

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

Thanks a lot for your advice.

[gerbil]

No worries. But don't treat them unless you actually have the problem, you might not even have mites, but they are very common on brugs.

To clarify when I go hard on my plants, they are larger specimens, not huge, but thicker stems with lots of reserve energy and have been treated harshly for years, I wouldn't be removing much if at all any foliage from yours if they are mite infested given the size of the plants. If there is a decent mite population and had to remove some foliage, i'd probably only remove the lower left medium sized leaf that is sort of cupping down (the one that's potentially showing the potential root zone/water issue) as that potentially looks like it could be the greater infested one, you'll see it by small white sorta 'dot's' all over the leaf, and on underside you'll find very thin webs with tiny tiny pin pricks moving about. I'd be more inclined to give them a sponge bath, and if needed a light spray. But figure out if it's insects, overwatering/soil issue or both before taking action. I'd probably also stop constant seasol applications if that's what you've been doing, less is more and it's easy to get caught up in the fertiliser/tonic hardware store hype creating out of whack pH or highly salty soils, i'm still trying to re-educate myself and break bad habits from poor advice and pathetic gardening shows lol have a good one.

Edited April 11, 2013 by gerbil

[LokStok]

man.. that is a lot of snail pellets in one pot!

really, they are attracted to them, so just a few will easily do the job in a pot that size. That end-leaf damage could even possibly be

a toxicity reaction to that.

I cant see anything that looks like snail/slug damage in that pic. In my experience its usually caterpillars

on brugs that do more damage, but I cant see any evidence of those either.

By the way, that is a shitload of cultivationgold provided by gerbil in the above posts, take note of it all!

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

Cheers gerbil. You have been infinitely helpful to my lack of knowledge with Brug growing.

Yeah I probably went overboard with the pellets. Again, I have an uncanny ability of killing with kindness.

Cheers LokStok, no obvious sign of caterpillars. I will take some pellets out and keep an eye on it. I'm glad I have this community to come to for help, without it I'd be killing plants left right and centre. Hopefully one day I can be the one to pass on the advice.