The True Cause of Sooty Mold

I know that people’s plants, from Ficus Hedge to Hibiscus, have sooty mold. One lady called it Black Gunk on leaves. People keep asking me: what can I spray to stop this? This is how everyone is taught, from folks with ants to whiteflies: you name the bug or name the disease. Many things will work, but only temporarily; it will reoccur, and you will have to spray again and again and again. Great for selling those things, whether in organic gardening or chemical gardening, there are many one can use.

This does nothing to solve the problem. Since one is dealing with the effect and not the cause. You know where I am going with this. I can read it in your thoughts. Ok, you ask, so what is the cause? Your plants are getting all the nutrients they need to be healthy. Whenever a plant gets a disease or pest, it is weak and suffers from a nutritional deficiency. Only Mother Nature can provide all 96 trace minerals needed by all living things. Yes, humans, animals, insects, trees, roses. You name it, need these minerals to be “healthy.”  

Mother Nature has set up an interconnection between all living things, especially between insects, diseases, and nutrition. For now, I am sticking to talking about Sooty Mold and how this interconnection plays out. Maybe, one day, I will tell you how this interconnection plays out in humans, but not today.  

So, what is going on with this Sooty Mold? It is a mold, yes, but how did it get there, and why? It has to do with ants. Ants are amazing creatures (show me a creature that Mother Nature created that wasn’t amazing), and these ants, like all creatures, want food. Of course, not just anything will do. Ants are not idiots and eat anything haphazardly in their way but are selective according to what is good for them, for their colony, and especially for the queen. Bees, too, are very similar to all insects.

So these ants have developed an underground ”farm,” where they grow mushrooms, small plants, and various food and water sources for their colony.

One of the things is to have a small herd of “Miniature Cows,” well, not cows but aphids, whiteflies, mealybugs, and more. These aphids are used to suck the “blood” out of plants through the stems or leaf veins. I call this Nectar. The ants herd these special cows onto the ficus (adding any plant here) and then milk them for their nectar. Ants have two stomachs, one for them and one to carry back this valuable nectar to their colony.

Now here is the part I don’t understand. First off, ants are run totally by females. Males hang out in various bars and wait for mating time. Then hundreds fly up with one queen and the winner gets to start a new colony. The remaining males all die.

Now, these ants, being females, one would think would be very clean, of course, they are, but in their colony. Outside, it's another story. So, they herd and take back nectar, but they leave a mess behind of this nectar! It is this nectar that the sooty molds grow on! The real question is, why did the ants pick that plant and leave the others alone?

Trace minerals. Rather, the lack of certain trace minerals produces in plants a special form of carbohydrate: a simple carbohydrate. This type of carb is food for insects because it provides them with the energy to work, and they thrive on this, whereas else healthy plants (like humans) produce a complex carbohydrate. This type of complex carbohydrate cannot be eaten by insects! How clever she is. Healthy plants are avoided by insects, and only the sick or weak are used. Survival of the fittest.

An excellent recycling program if you ask me!It comes down to how the plants are kept healthy enough that ants and other pests avoid it.

It is not certainly by how humans feed it now, is it?It is by how the soil biology feeds it. Only the hidden army of the soil has different divisions that specialize in providing certain trace minerals to the plants. We humans cannot produce all of these trace minerals. Miss any one of the trace minerals and the plant and all the insects will know it.

I talk about using a refractometer to measure the Brix levels in plants. This measures how well the plant has been fed. The lower the Brix, the more pests and diseases will find it. The higher, the fewer pests, and high enough, none at all. Besides the carbs difference, there is another amazing interconnection that says that all minerals (trace elements) have a frequency, and that translates to a color. Insects like ants can see this color. They have genetically been trained to know the color of what food is good for them and what is not. Like a brix level in a refractometer. How cool is that?

So the bottom line is this: bring your soil back to life, stop destroying it with chemicals, and the living soil will provide you with healthy pest and disease-free plants.

I spray the leaves with the microbiological activator that I make. This provides the soil biology with the foundation for them to do more, but this takes time. In the meantime, you can spray the plants with an organic cold brew coffee or with wood vinegar both need to be diluted in water. Soak the soil, which will help to keep them out anyway, as the coffee or vinegar will kill them while at the same time helping the soil biology.

Till next week,
Happy Growing (Organically of course)

Andy Lopez
Invisible Gardener

Any questions, write to me at andylopez@invisiblegardener.com