Recently I have planted 100 unit young citrus tree in my garden close to Caspian sea area, anticipating pest as natural process, I would like to receive first hand advice in steps I should take to prevent or control of pests by way of organic mechanism. Thank you.

hi sharon, thats great to hear your organic efforts are going well. organic gardening isnt new at all in fact it really is the old way of gardening before companies started making all those fancy synthetic treatments and fertilisers available. Your leaf eating worms sound like caterpillars, or loopers, and the black bugs eating the new tips are most likely aphids. If there are only a few caterpillars you can just pick them off. aphids can also be knocked off with a jet spray from the hose (just cradle the area in your other hand while you do so the plant doesnt flail about).

mzounubi, you may get different pests where you are but I find with citrus its the aphids, scale and the fruit fly that are just attracted to them like a magnet. to control the scale and aphids you can use an organic pest oil which will suffocate them and with my citrus I do sometimes resort to this because they can be such a problem with citrus trees, to protect mine from fruit fly I use calico bags and once the fruit starts forming I bag the clusters of fruit and it has worked 100% for me at keeping the fruit fly out. For 100 fruiting trees though, it could be a lot of work unless youre really dedicated but there are also fruit fly lures and traps available to hang in trees as an alternative.

trance

Which insect pest are you trying to control. The Organic way is to identify the insect pest, determine if the insect pest is doing enough harm to warrent controling it, determine if there are beneficial insects that will control this pest, if necessary apply the least toxic means of control possible to control that pest, and then review the previous steps.
Milk will help with some plant diseases, but I've seen nothing that it is effective to control insects. Some people claim coffee grounds keep slugs from plants but I've not seen that and the slugs here crawl over the coffee grounds I put down.
If your plants have aphids a sharp water spray is all that is needed to remove them, although that will need to be repeated often as new aphids appear. Many of the leaf eaters, in early larval stage, can be controlled by applications of Bacillus thurigiensis - Kurstaki and some in later, even adult stages, can be controlled by a 1 percent soap and water spray.

I saw a warning on a tv gardening show that the milk spray recipe must be followed carefully. If there's too much milk it can cause problems. Apparently if it's done properly it's very effective (haven't tried it myself).

I came across an article on bougainvillea (can't remember where, drat!) that described the little worm as camoflaging itself close to the stem. I did spray the ends with a hard force of water and that was when the little bugger showed itself. It described the holes in the leaves perfectly. I am walking a fine line of insect control as my newly planted butterfly garden is just the other side of the fence from the bougainvillea.... A botanist friend of mine actually follows the code if something is pest ridden, she replaces it with something that is hardier and can resist the pests.I thought the bougainvillea was one of those. I actually took out a gardenia bush that had these problems. I had to babysit it all the time. We'll see how it goes...

sharon I try to attract butterflies aswell and I often find little grubs sandwiched in between leaves or near stems but as long as the damage is small I just leave them. they do come out pretty quick though when theyre disturbed, although Im not sure if we are talking about the same grubs. Bougainvilleas are very tough plants and I never get any pests on mine, but it does take time for an organic garden to get to the stage where there is a balance and diversity of life and then the pest problems become minimal so you may just need to give it some time for things to even out. Once the garden gets to that stage, and it can take years, youll know which plants are just going to be an ongoing problem and may not be worth the effort to grow in your garden.

Thanks for the encouragement, I had always heard Bougainvilleas are very hardy too. Mine had a major leaf drop last year during the heaviest part of the rainy season, but it came back just fine. The worms (or grubs)are something new. I really want to establish the balance you speak of. I am a wildlife keeper so I want to be able to encourage people first hand about organic gardening.

Sharron in West Ft Lauderdale