Yet another conundrum....

While out communing with my JMs yesterday, I noticed the oddest thing. Much of my 'Tsuma gaki' has what appears to be chewed petioles. I suspected maybe Maple Leaf Borer, except this has happened in only the last two weeks, and the petiole isn't shriveled on the leaf side of the cut, even after 24 hours. Fortunately, the buds under the petioles appear to be healthy.

Have any of you seen this before?

I posted about this in the Garden Pests forum as well: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1226905/

Another pic

And it's not just a few leaves:

that is strange - will interested to see if anyone has seen that before.

I can only say that the first photo shows ironically scale markings ( something we just discussed) at least that what it looks like .it could be winter bark split but looks like old scale ,.. of course you should be able to see them if any more are there..... Looosing leaves this time of year is no big deal they have plenty of energy stored for the winter unless it is systemic soil or otherwise a sick tree ..,if not they will all fall soon ., and this summer if you didn't loose leaves you were lucky ... Chicago got adequate rain but super high temps many of us got no or little rain and the high temps much higher than youn for 2.5 months... many trees are surely streesed and a bad winter will likely do some in that didn't already succumb.. If any of you in then "heat" zone didn't or don't this winter loose a jm or two you will be very lucky ... hottest summer in 100 years for most folks midwest south and east ... west you should all be fine... But for those in the "heat and dry zone" be prepared for some looses especially those with smaller JMs and even more so conifers which many of you likely already lost if bought small many conifers planted out needed almost constant watering to survive. Davidsan