Ticks of Fruit trees

 Written by: Mir Aqa Atabar

In Afghanistan, most of the gardeners complain from the varieties of trees diseases. Ticks are the types of fruit trees pests that face the gardeners with the problem. Ticks are a small insect that could not be seen easily but affect trees of apple, peaches, apricots, almonds, and others.

The writer/producer of AEPO has talked to some gardeners and an agricultural expert.  Noor Gul, a gardener of Chahar Asiab, district of Kabul province says: our fruit trees had ticks. At the beginning, the leaves of the trees fell down and then most of the branches dried and I lose about Afs. 100,000.

Mir Jan Himat, an agricultural expert says:

Fruits feed on the sap of leaves. When ticks affect the leaves, they fall down from trees. In the result, the branches become bare and fruit could not be able to feed from leaves and it might cause of drying the whole tree.

During winter, the ticks hide under the remainders of the weeds, clods and evergreen grass and at the beginning of spring, they attack fruit trees.

How to prevent this disaster?

Mr. Mir Jan counts the easy ways to illuminate ticks as follows: spraying drugs; washing the leaves of trees by spraying machines many time a year; during collecting fruits, spoiled fruits should be buried away from gardens and show the affected leaves to agricultural experts.