Cherry tree black fly advice

[BeBe48]

Hi
My young cherry tree is infested with black fly. I do I spray and what with? I sprayed a couple of years ago and nearly killed it off - can't remember exactly what with but likely Bug clear .
Thanks for any advice

[Kirk]

Mine gets badly infected and ultimately 2 options - leave it to whatever happens or spray.

If you spray then if I recall most of the leave will die off, there are damaged and the tree loses them and produces new ones. The catch is that aphids can introduce virus and other problems. So you can find that not spraying will cause problems in other areas of infection.

Equally people do not like chemicals. In the term "chemical" I include the idea of soap solution - soap in made in large processing factories, read the label. It is chemical and how often does rain fall as a soapy solution. So quite how "soap" is considered natural or organic is a bit lost on me.

Many anti-bug chemicals are not available now, think all the systemic ones have gone. Which were useful as the leaves curl and systemic did get to the aphids better.

I have somewhere the one called Ultimate Bug Killer, not used it much in 2 years, not had a great bug problem for a while. However it is a pain to use. If I recall it is 1/2 cc to a litre of water, and you cannot measure out 1/2 cc. Stupid idea someone had. I ended up at a chemist buying a marked 1cc syringe. Which was fun, fortunately I had the bottle of bug stuff on me and could show why I needed one.

One aspect I face is my cherry is big, too big to net or protect from birds so I never get any cherries (birds do) so spraying is a bit irrelevant to me, also the tree is big so fairly able to fight off anything.

I tend to watch the tree and if too much of a problem them I will spray. It becomes a bit of a compromise or decision on when are too many aphids getting detrimental.

[nickdub]

Hi
My young cherry tree is infested with black fly. I do I spray and what with? I sprayed a couple of years ago and nearly killed it off - can't remember exactly what with but likely Bug clear .
Thanks for any advice

You could try using water to wash them off - get a garden hose on quite high pressure, then with your finger on the end, direct a jet against the flies - you can use you other hand to support the foliage.

[Guest]

If it is just the leaves at the tips of branches you could just nip them off and dispose of them. I have and still leave mine (do nothing) just to get on with it. You will find bees, wasps and earwigs will come in and do their thing and that will be it for the blackfly for another year. If you feel the tree is weak to start off with then do what you can, but if it seems healthy let it be IMO

[BeBe48]

Thanks the advice. I'll get the hose out!