Have you got this strange thing happening to your citrus? The fruit goes all lumpy with these wart like growths. It’s caused by a common fungal disease called ‘citrus scab’. One good thing, it doesn’t affect the quality of the fruit inside although, if you don’t control it, the plant will eventually become unproductive.

When you take a closer look at the leaves and twigs within the tree, you may also see some damage from the disease. In the long term, this will make the tree weak and the fruit will drop wellbefore they mature.

So how can you control this disease? Well the first thing that’s needed is some pruning. Any diseased fruit and material you see - prune it off.  Then gather it all up, toss it into a bag and get rid of it. You also need to get yourself a fungicide called copper oxychloride. It’s safe to use, just make sure you follow the safety directions on the pack.

When you make your mix, add about 6ml of white oil per litre to help make the solution stick to the leaves. Then spray all the surfaces of the plant - that includes the underside of leaves, the branches, trunk - the lot.

Citrus Scab is an air borne disease, so to make sure the tree is protected, you’ll need to follow up again later- say February and again early next spring when the new flowers have lost about half their petals.