Author Topic: Advise me citrus masters!  (Read 3125 times)

zephian

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Advise me citrus masters!
« on: September 12, 2018, 11:39:22 PM »
Sorry if this is a long post. I've got some issues with my Citrus trees right now.
They all appear to have some leaf curl in new growth and possible leaf miner. Is there any thing I can do to treat these short of spraying a pesticide? If I absolutely have too I can, but the wife would prefer a 'natural' solution. The trees are Naval Orange, Meyer Lemon, and Pomelo. Not sure what variety.

Any help is appreciated.



Lime


Lime


Orange


Orange


Lemon


Lemon


Lemon


Lemon


Pomelo


Pomelo


Orange


Lemon



Pomelo Leaf


Pomelo sundamage? Very hot summer. Should I paint this over?
« Last Edit: September 12, 2018, 11:45:26 PM by zephian »
-Kris

TooFarNorth

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2018, 06:58:40 AM »
Zephian, I'm no expert, but that is leaf miner damage on your leaves. The only non pesticide solution I know of is horticultural oil sprayed every 5 to 10 days until new signs diminish. They look bad, but mature trees will still recover and produce. That does look like sunburn on your Pomelo. I see it on some of the leaves also. Painting with 50/ 50 mix of latex paint and water should help. Maybe some of the more knowledgeable members will give you more solutions.


TFN

fyliu

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2018, 03:43:30 PM »
That's all leafminer damage. You could have applied pesticides early on during the new flush. The bugs are long gone from there once you see the damage. They're looking for new flush to lay their eggs. They can't penetrate mature leaves.

Try not to prune away the damaged leaves if your plants are not very big yet. It will slow down their growth if you prune off all the new growth.

zephian

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2018, 03:55:32 PM »
Trees are very well established. I got hundreds of oranges, lemons and probably 50 pommelos as big as my head last year.
I noticed some of this last year too but it wasn't as severe. The lime tree is my only 'young' citrus on my property.

If the damage is already done I don't mind leaving it on their, it doesn't seem to affect the production at all.
-Kris

Millet

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2018, 06:36:10 PM »
Although the leaves are damaged, they still have quite a bit of green areas remaining. Do not prune off leaves damaged by citrus leafminer since undamaged areas of leaves continue to produce food for the tree.    Next year apply Spinosad (you can find information concerning Spinosad on the Internet) it will protect the tree from  leaf miner damage. You wrote two years ago the tree had a lesser amount damage, this year it had much more damage, next year it could have even for damage.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2018, 03:09:51 PM by Millet »

zephian

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2018, 10:35:28 AM »
Although the leaves are damaged, they still have quite a bit of green areas remaining. Do not prune off leaves damaged by citrus leafminer since undamaged areas of leaves continue to produce food for the tree.    Next year apply Spinosad (you can find information concerning Spinosad on the Internet) it will protect the tree from  leaf miner damage. The wrote two years ago the tree had a lesser amount damage, this year it had much more damage, next year it could have even for damage.
When would be a good time to spray spinosad? It kills benificial insects too so I don't want to spray when blooming...the bees are all over my trees.
-Kris

Millet

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2018, 03:21:36 PM »
According to the Spinosad General Fact Sheet of the National Pesticide Information Center, “Spinosad is a natural substance made by a soil bacterium that can be toxic to insects. It is a mixture of two chemicals called spinosyn A and spinosyn D. It is used to control a wide variety of pests. These include thrips, leaf miners, spider mites, mosquitoes, ants, fruit flies and others.” It is approved for use on organic gardens by Organic Materials Review Institute, or OMRI. One caution with its use: In high concentrations, it can be toxic to honey and native bees, so we should only spray when bees are not present on our trees.

Johnny Eat Fruit

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2018, 08:06:04 PM »
Spinosad does work on the leafminer but it must be applied every 7-10 days from May to Sept to be effective. On my established older trees I just cut out the infected growth in summer. On young trees also cut out infected new growth in summer and new growth will appear in fall or early spring that will be unaffected (The first growth flush in Citrus in March-April in unaffected by the leafminer).  Don't worry about it as this pest has been around for quite some time and may reduce production on younger trees but has little impact on older well-established citrus trees.

Johnny
« Last Edit: September 14, 2018, 08:32:39 PM by Johnny Eat Fruit »

zephian

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2018, 08:32:35 PM »
The trees were already established when I first saw them 6 years ago (I haven't asked but im sure they're 10+ years old)
Thanks for the input guys.
-Kris

Millet

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2018, 08:43:28 PM »
Today is September 14th,  if Zephian cuts out the branches affected by citrus leaf miner, there will be no regrowth because it is to late in the year.  By doing so he will only be losing any food production by the tree, that the effected branches will still provide.  The next available growth for a citrus tree at this time of year will be next spring.  At that time Zephian's tree will branch out wither it has been or not been attacked by citrus leaf miner.  Of course Zephian can do what ever he wishes with his tree, but my advice would to leave the tree alone.

Johnny Eat Fruit

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2018, 09:11:18 PM »
With older well-established citrus trees you can go either way. Removing infected growth in late summer or early fall will have little effect on next years growth based on my experience as the majority of foliage is already unaffected and providing photosynthesis to the established Citrus tree.

Either way, it is a matter of preference and appearance. In the following spring, new growth will be in abundance. The 2nd flush in May will be affected by leafminer so spraying at that time may be beneficial if you care about appearance.

Johnny

zephian

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2018, 10:16:49 PM »
I'm going to leave it for the season. I am getting new growth but barely. The weathers been nice and it's tricking alot of my plants right now...
The trees are established to a good size where no new growth would be quite fine with me, though. I will probably do some cleanup on the lemon tree as theres alot of crossing branches that make picking fruit hard. I believe it's on a dwarf rootstalk as the canopy is only 2-3 ft up.
-Kris

spaugh

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Re: Advise me citrus masters!
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2018, 06:23:36 PM »
Zephian have you been fertilizing the trees this summer? What did you feed them?  Just curious as usually the leaf miners hit hard after feeding nitrogen in summer months.  If your trees are already mature you can cut back on the nitrogen and have less issues with the leaf miners.  But also they dont really much damage on mature trees.  You can pretty much ignore it. 
Brad Spaugh