How to help your Eucalyptus Tree and Others Live with the Anthracnose disease

How to help your Eucalyptus Tree and Others Live with the Anthracnose disease

This disease affects a variety of plants that live in a warm, humid environment. It does not just include Eucalyptus but sycamore, ash, oak, maple, and a host of other plants such as grasses and annuals. There is also now another type of anthracnose that also lives in colder climates.

There are many problems in controlling this disease. These problems are not allowing the recovery of the plants from the disease. What are these problems?

First, let us look at the main cause since I talk a lot about cause and effect. The main cause of almost everything that happens to these plants and trees is a human toxin. Toxins destroy the health of the soil. Sick soil will only produce sick plants and trees.

The disease, as well as all diseases,  are soil born. They are in the soil. It is only through a functioning healthy that these diseases kept in check. It is when the soil no longer can control these diseases that disease spread. Just like in the human body. All diseases of humans can attribute to a biological function that is not operating correctly. The stomach is very much like the soil in many ways. We evolved from the soil. If the soil is not doing its job, then our stomach cannot do its job either.

The problem with controlling lies in the destruction of the soil worldwide. There is no place on earth that you will not find human-made toxins. All of which is not good for the health of the soil.

So if you look around any city that has these trees, you will find that all of them have this disease. It cannot be stopped or controlled through the use of chemicals like fungicides or pesticides. These only make the problem worse, and the trees die.

Like standing next to a person with a cold, you will also get the cold, but the difference is if your body is healthy, it will fight off the cold better then if you were weak already. Weak trees have no defense against these diseases. Healthy trees, however, have built-in defenses.

Let me explain how it works.

Mother Nature has been working on this for a long time. Everything has evolved to follow this simple rule - If you lack the proper Trace minerals, you will be considered a prime target for recycling.

Mother Nature, in her wisdom, knows that when we are getting all of our trace minerals that we are healthy and if we are not, then it is sick and must be recycled if it doesn’t recover.

Very real for trees as well as all living things.

So, what does this have to do with the Anthracnose disease?

All diseases have evolved to take advantage of this. When a disease attacks a tree or any living thing, it knows that the living thing is deficient in certain trace minerals. How does it know this? How does an insect know this? The question never asked since, apparently, I am the only one asking this question. Have you ever thought that a disease would only attack certain trees say if it was mineral deficient? Nope, you are taught by the “professionals” that you should attack the disease with some chemical that will kill or suppress it. Same from doctors for us humans. How well is that going? Attacking the effects and ignoring the cause will not solve the problem; only make money from whoever is selling their version of a “fix.”

I teach that there are short term and long term solutions to everything.

Let’s go over the short term solutions first.

First off, we must immediately help the tree to regain the trace minerals it needs. Lack of certain trace minerals changes the “blood” of the tree and makes it food for insects and diseases. Through the use of a refractometer, one can get a Brix reading. I have talked many times about this. I stopped using Brix readings because every time it shows this mineral deficiency. I only use it for non-believers- those folks that say I am crazy, so I show them proof from an instrument. Let them figure it out for themselves the facts.

I have said in the past what this difference is, and I will only say it here for those new readers. There are simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates: simple carbs are the main food source for insects as well as diseases. Pests and diseases go together. Pests are vectors for most diseases; however, some diseases have figured out ways to get to their destinations on their own. This is one such disease that does not require pests to help them get around. By using spores that the wind and animals and humans can spread around, they can move out and find their prey.

Remember the health person standing next to a sick person? It is the same with this disease and trees. If a spore lands on a healthy tree, the spore will die because it cannot survive without nourishment from its host.

It is the complex carbs they cannot digest. 

Simple huh?

Short term solution is to provide the tree with a source of minerals. It is only done via foliar spraying since anything you put into the ground-organic or otherwise will not work. There are many excellent trace mineral products on the market. Learn to make your own mineral-rich compost by adding rock dust to the composting process. Try Sea90, which has over 90 trace minerals. Try Superseaweed, which is another trace mineral product.

Long term solution is to apply a live mineral-rich, microbial rich compost several times per year. There are a few on the market try Doctor Earth soil amendment and also organic fertilizers with microbes. I would add rock dust to this.

 Any questions? Email me andy@invisiblegardener.com Andy Lopez Invisible Gardener