black spots on olives, turn black and fall off in days
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I have a few olive trees growing. Black spots appear on my olives and then they turn black and fall off in a matter of days. What is this?
Olive Peacock Spot (AKA Olive Leaf Spot.
It only attacks olive trees and only affects trees through the growing season. It’s quite easy to ‘spot’ as you’ll see small black spots on the top surface of the leaves. This is actually a lesion produced by the fungufungus. *
Thanks NIGHTSHADE! I looked it up but what’s strange is I only have this on the fruits. None of the leaves show any spots at all. I understand peacock would always infect leaves, too.
On top of this after a few days (like a week or so) the entire fruit shrivels up, turning black in the process. I’ll try to get a few more pictures.
Did you resolve this issue? I have the same thing I think…thanks you.
Kevin
Hi stake yeah there isn’t much that can save the current crop. It’s not peacock at all. It’s a combination of a small fly, Prolasioptera berlesiana, and a fungus Camarosporium dalmaticum that is present a bit everywhere (in soil especially) and when the fly lays an egg, the fungus enters through the wound.
All I did was remove any spotted olives as soon as I saw them, that at least reduced the number of flies going around. Larvae couldn’t hatch any more. But I don’t have many trees, only 12, and they’re still small so it’s not much work. When the spot is there, it’s too late already.
A neighbor set up some yellow glue traps, some of the flies got stuck in it, so that’s also something that works a bit.
An internet search shows that spraying against the fungus works, too, reducing bad fruit by 30% (mancozeb) or at least 10% (any other copper fungicide).
Do you have a lot to deal with?
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