Tea tree oil (TTO), a substance also known as melaleuca oil, comes from the Australian tea tree (belonging to the Myrtaceae family) and has been used by humans to treat acne, athlete’s foot, lice, nail fungus and insect bites. More likely than not, you can find it in several over-the-counter skin care products and essential oils at your local drug store and Amazon. TTO has been used as a traditional medicine by Australian Aborigines for centuries, and the substance has a variety of natural ingredients that have been shown to kill certain bacteria, viruses and fungi. 1
One bio-ag company located in Tel Aviv, Israel has been investigating the usefulness of TTO for use as an organic botanical compound to fight fungi and other plant diseases in crops, and especially on fruit such as grapes and citrus. STK Bio-ag Technologies has developed a product called Timorex® Act, which is a purely organic formulation based on TTO—certified by OMRI and Ecocert—and highly effective against a broad spectrum of plant diseases in a variety of fruit and vegetable crops, including anthracnose, powdery mildew, early blight, botrytis, cencicilla, etc.