The Tropical Fruit Forum
Citrus => Citrus General Discussion => Topic started by: baccarat0809 on March 04, 2018, 04:43:03 PM
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While I haven't had any flushes yet on my Meyer Lemon, my cocktail tree (Honeybell Tangelo, Ruby Red Grapefruit and Navel Orange) and my Key Lime have put on beautiful flushes of growth and the leaves just look amazing.
While I took a hit from that cold snap, I'm pretty sure its responsible for killing off the critters that did a lot of damage to my leaves last year.
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I never get CLM with the first flush. Problem grows with each successive generation though so by August its virtually 100% of the leaves are hit if I don't spray (and its pretty high even when I do).
Wishful thinking but I doubt the cold did anything other than slow them down for a few weeks.
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As Yorgos wrote, citrus leaf miners normally don't affect citrus much until the second flush of new growth.
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This brings up another good question, spray for CLM or don't spray? In my case CLM seem to effect less than 10-15% of my in ground citrus tree leaves regardless of time of year.
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Some years ago, when citrus leaf miner first arrived here to Hawaii all the citrus were heavily plagued by it. But as years went by the infestation became much more tolerable, now there is very little damage. So obviously some natural predators or other natural balance came into play. But don't know what made the population go way down?
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There is a variety of wasp that is a predator of the leaf miner.
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There is a variety of wasp that is a predator of the leaf miner.
Yes, it's possible the ag dept. released that wasp here. Not sure.
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This brings up another good question, spray for CLM or don't spray? In my case CLM seem to effect less than 10-15% of my in ground citrus tree leaves regardless of time of year.
If I had such a slight infestation, I wouldn't spray. One benefit of citrus to me is they are the host plant for the giant swallowtail butterfly. I gladly allow the sacrifice of a few leaves for this caterpillar and CLM sprays kills these larvae. The leaves eaten by the caterpillar pale in comparison to the CLM.
In any event, I was hit hard by rust mites last year so I will be spraying for those.
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They are terrible in Perth western Australia.......they are supposed to appear in late summer/autumn but the past two years they have appeared in spring and hassle my trees throughout the spring/summer and Autumn.........I have done quite a bit of research into what they do.........IF you get hassled by them in autumn......its best not to feed with high Nitrogen at this time as its the Nitrogen they seek.,......so feed high nitrogen in spring and then in autumn a lower Nitrogen percentage.......I have tried all sprays and they get through all of them but neem oil seems to cut them down....soaks into the leaf and actually kills the grub...I spray every 14 days and it helps...remove affected leaves.