Bronze Orange Bug on my Mandarin

[Dee_Sydney]

Wouldn't you know it, two weeks after excitedly discovering that the random tree in my back yard is a mandarin, I find it infested with bronze orange bug and all the lovely flowers and buds have been eaten.

I would love some advise for next year - this year is a write off I think. I have read about the two solutions for this bug of picking them off by hand and putting them in boiling water and vaccuming them off but as you can see from the photo, my tree is too big and in an akward position to be able to do this and I don't always have time to do it on a really hot day when them come lower down.

Is there anything else I can do to get rid of them or to discourage them?

[frozenthunderbolt]

if what you have are bronze beetles - little bastards about 4-6 ml long that chew holes in everything then you have me condolances. try putting newspaper down then shaking the hell outa the tree - they should all drop to the ground - its there defence mechanism.
srcew up and burn the paper or spray wiit insecticide of your choice. chicked will eat them if very hungry but not by choice, apparently gunifoul are better but the noise they make is horrendous.

[Dee_Sydney]

frozenthunderbolt, thanks for the reply, that could have been a great idea especially as the tree is too big for hand picking only there are some plants underneath it that I wouldn't be able to put newspaper on effectively. The bugs would fall to the ground and I wouldn't be able to collect them all.

I was kind of hoping there was an organic spray I could use (I'd hire a monster sprayer) or there was something I could do to fortify it against attack for next year.

I suspect this poor tree will never fruit again.

[frozenthunderbolt]

pyrethrum (sp.?) based spray is broardly speaking organic and might work, or else i have heard of people making up a flour spray - esentialy very thin flour and water paste and spreaying that to gum up the chewing mouthparts of the beetles. ihavent tryed it myself, and if i was going to then i would buy a cheap sprayer just in case you glue up the sprayer as well!

[AlisonM]

We have lemon and lime trees in our yard and this is the first time I have noticed the bronze orange bug. They have been on the trees for a week or so and now there are white wooly patches on the leaves. Does anyone know if they are from the bugs or is it something else????

Thanks

[Wombat]

G'Day Alison, welcome to the site!

Woolly patches sound like woolly aphids, but i've only seen them on apple trees.

Nev

[AlisonM]

Thanks for the welcome.

So if the spots are woolly aphids how can I get rid of them? That may explain why there are lots of ants on the trees as well as the BOBs.

Alison