Author Topic: Papaya leaf curl virus?  (Read 455 times)

irun5k

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Papaya leaf curl virus?
« on: October 26, 2022, 06:59:05 PM »
Per my research I fear that this is leaf curl virus...  is there anything else it could be?  It seems to have just started and has affected the last few leaves the plants have put out.

These are Hawaiian varieties that I'm growing- or trying to grow- here in SW FL.  I have not found much about this virus being a problem in FL.








Midwestfruitjungle

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Re: Papaya leaf curl virus?
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2022, 08:44:31 AM »
I had a papaya tree that did that. I had to kill it and throw away the pot. I didn’t want to risk it. It was transferred to other plants through whitefly, although it seemed like one of my plants recovered by using an aspirin solution (2 tablets for 1 gallon of water). I believe it is mosaic virus, and I am not sure if it got the disease or if it was grown from a mother plant that had the disease. I would isolate it and try treatment.

Midwestfruitjungle

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Midwestfruitjungle

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Re: Papaya leaf curl virus?
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2022, 08:52:00 AM »
The papaya I grew was also a Hawaiian variety, and being in northern Indiana, it makes me think that it was infected as a seed. Not too sure tho.

Plantinyum

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Re: Papaya leaf curl virus?
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2022, 10:58:22 AM »
Ive also had this when i was growing papaya here, although the leaves of mine curved downwards and not up, like yours are doing. On mine i found i had a severe mite infestation, i was kinda succesfull in clearing some of them via sprays ,which kinda fixed the leaves, but only a slight improvement happened as the mites were persistent.
You can try to investigate the leaves for sighns of mites and their webs via a magnifier.

irun5k

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Re: Papaya leaf curl virus?
« Reply #5 on: November 02, 2022, 09:24:10 PM »
Thanks all.  I contacted the county extension office and they confirmed that the leaf curl virus is present in Pinellas County as well as various other counties in FL and said the plants should be destroyed.

I have found papaya to be very challenging to grow here in FL.  At our previous house we had 100% chance of papaya wasps and had to bag each fruit.  I also found odd pests on them them I'd never seen before, weird stuff like ultra fat green slug-looking things.  Here at our new house, this was the first planting so we didn't even make it to the point where we'd have to worry about wasps.   

When we lived in Hawaii, I saw so many of them growing in places, 100% ignored, and doing far better than anything I've been able to achieve here even with me serving as a constant nanny.

Perhaps this is the final sign to plant more dragonfruit, or some other fruit instead  :P