Juniper interior discoloration

[cheap_walmart_art]

I am thinking this may just be a symptom of the overly wet spring we've been having, but is the interior discoloration of this little juniper anything to worry about or get ahead of? The tips are growing nicely. Hasn't been wired or repotted recently. Tea bags are 9:1 cottonseed meal kelp mix.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

So hard to say. Looks like you're caring for it well, the soil looks good, it is off the ground, etc. Might just be naturally aging of the old interior foliage, or it might be some fungus. In a perfect world you would want to clean up the foliage to let sun and wind into the interior, which would make fungus less likely.

Never hurts to give it a good spray with neem oil, which is an organic pesticide with some anti-fungal properties. If you have had fungus problems in the past, I would consider getting a little more aggressive and treating with a rotation of Heritage, Clearys 3336 and Mancozeb (wait 7-10 days between each application and switch to the next anti-fungal in your rotation). This is a standard anti-fungal treatment we use on the west coast when cold and wet weather sets in.

 

[cheap_walmart_art]

Thanks for the Info. Unfortunately nowhere near me sells the granular stuff so I've got an online order in. In the meantime I've sprayed the problem trees with copper fungicide to help mitigate possible spores spreading.

On that note, is there a particular reason that you use granular fungicide over a spray concentrate? I notice the active ingredient tends to be different across brands but from my short bout of research, seems like the granular stuff tends to be billed as lawn care fungicide.

 

[cheap_walmart_art]

So just a bit if an update. I cleaned out the dead foliage over the weekend and applied some bonide Granular. I've also held off on watering it. Poked a wooden skewer in the soil today and left it, it cane out just slightly damp. Tree still looking rough.


I did the paper test, no sign of mites. Saw no black dots and nothing smeared when I rubbed with my fingers. I did notice that the growing tips have some tiny brown ends though, tried to capture with my phone.




Just for comparison, here is the same type of juniper that has sat next to it all year. You can see it has some healthy growing tips and while sparse (got carried away pruning last year) it's a healthy green.



I sprayed it with some neem oil and I'll keep it out if the rain the next few days much as I can. I know it's just a little whip but it's the first tree I've owned and it would be a shame to lose it, since it started all of this.