This is a sanbokan grapefruit, grafted on flying dragon root stock.
The leaves on the first flush are curling up. Had drought conditions last year and the past month has been dry.
Not sure If I'm not getting it enough water or a bug problem. Last week I started spraying with an orchard spray.
Anyone who knows exactly what the problem is?
This is what's making me nervous. I noticed today my red navel orange seems to be having the same problem.
New leaves next to last years.
The leaves on both trees looked fine when they came out and are turning dark green which is what they should be doing but both are curling up.
BTW I don't see the probelm on my madrin orange or my tangerine. For that matter my peaches and plums look fine.
Here's another pic from the grapefruit.
Another .
I could distinctly see stippling in the first picture you posted. My guess is thrips and/or mites of some flavor. What is the active ingredient in the orchard spray that you have?
I'm using Green light fruit tree spray.
Pyrethrins .25%
Piperonyl Butoxide 2.50%
Neem oil 70%
I would double check to see if spider mites are listed on the label. Should be with 70% neem. That product is a contact spray with no residual activity. Do you have any place to go for insect diagnosis in your area? An Ag. extension agency or a reputable retail nursery that allows customers to bring in leaves? I would try to determine whether or not thrips are present, and then you may want to use something stronger if you have it or are willing. Otherwise, just expect to need to re-apply a product that does not have residual activity as the pests usually do not die off completely with those kinds of products.
I'm thinking I may just need more water. I have check the leaves with a magnifying glass and I see no insects. That doesn't mean they aren't there.
The grapefruit happens to be in the driest spot followed by the naval. I'm going to water them real well right now and then in the morning run a 4 gallon per minute sprinkler in the "orchard". It's small only 12 trees so I'll hit the whole area tomorrow with a good amount of water. Next day spray them again since it's been about 7 days since I sprayed them.
If that doesn't seem to do anything I can give my local ext. office a leaf to look over.
As far as water or lack off water I haven't seen leaves roll up like that so I'm thinking it may be some sort of bug.
One other thing. The new leaves are the only ones effected. Old ones showing no stress or damage.
I see this on my trees, usually on the spring flushes. This will take care of itself.
Oldude
Core, everything you and olduse have described is classic telltale insect infestation. I saw stippling in that first photo. No doubt about it. What power is your magnification? Also, as you start to learn and get the eye for more and more maladies, not all insects are best diagnosed by seeing them with your eye. I have even trained folks with poor vision rudamentary insect diagnosis vis a vis damage symptoms. Some species, for example eriophyid mites (which are smaller than flat mites or broad mites) are truly diagnosed in a practical sense by their damage. I can see broad mites and flat mites with a 10X lense. I can also tell a male and a female tetranychid with my naked eye, as well as instantly spot dead or sluggish mites, but that's what you would expect from someone like me who is into horticulture in every facet of life.
By the way, moistrure stress is very key to the "critical mass" point of an insect infestation, so you are on to something there. Good luck!
The orchard spray does list mites. I do have small trees so I am paying decent attention to them but on the other hand I'm not a commerical producer. I just want to get some fruit which I did last year and have some good sized trees in a few years. Once something is established it can usually deal with a lot more without having problems. I don't spray my peaches trees and they're doing fine right now. Squirrels are my only problem with those. They like to pull the fruit off before they're ripe. Why before they're ripe???? I don't know.
At this point I'll just need to see what happens over the next week. Wish we would get some rain. Last year was bad and this year started fine now the weather pattern is starting to look the same as last year.
This is pointing to aphids as the problem.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/citrus/table2.html
Next question how to keep aphid away durning a new flush. I'm not big on chemicals BTW.
You can hose them off, or else insecticidal soap works too and is organic. Whichever approach you take though you will have to keep after them since they reproduce like crazy, if you miss one or two and then don't do anything more for a week, you'll find they've multiplied and are all over again.
Horticultural oils would be my choice for aphids if we are talking strictly no chemicals. Works on pretty much anything for that matter, but you will have to repeat spray. Apply early in the morning or evening so the sun does not burn the leaves.
If it doesn't rain the oil will last for a little while, won't it or does it stop working as soon as it drys out?
I've used soap on my jasmine before because of aphids. It wasn't a big deal with the jasmine, just looked bad because of the soot mold that ends up growing because of the aphids.
I really didn't see any aphids on the fruit trees but I did see lots of ants running around and if I remember right ants and aphids go together. Can't remember why right now.
Oil and soap sprays have no residual activity (at best residual oil helps discourage egg laying of certain pests like leaf miner or some weevils.) The oil suffocates the insects and is just a contact spray. Since it does remain on the leaf, you have to rotate what choices you may have in your non-chemical aresenal because both soap and oil builds up on the leaf with repeat sprays. BTW, you've reccommended nicotine spray in one of your other posts. Although it's organic, nicotine is very poisonous! Sorry, couldn't help myself with that one. I respect everyone's beliefs but pesticide chemistry has long changed since the old days of organochlorines and organophosphates......I come across the idea that all pesiticides are bad, and I just don't agree with that as a blanket statement, but at the same time I admit that my approach at home is that I don't spray every little thing because I just don't have the time. Anyway, getting back to your comments specifically, ants and aphids go together (as do ants and scale or ants and mealy bugs) because they farm the honey dew excretions that certain insects excrete.
I don't like the idea of using a nicotine spray on fruit trees. That's more of a last resort weapon anyways.
That's what it was honey dew is what the ants are after.
I seem to be narrowing things down. Trees have been watered and for now I'm not seeing aphids. Just went and looked up pictures of different aphids etc. I'll have to see if I have any aphid activity any where else in my yard. They do seem to love confederate jasmine. Might be a different aphid though.
Leaves look basicly the same but I'm not seeing any bugs. The trees have been sprayed twice with neem oil so maybe I killed them off already. I didn't see them first time around and I would have noticed them all over the leaves.
Just went a looked with a flashlight. LOL. First two trees nothing then the mandarin orange. That tree had ants running everywhere and a branch had maybe 50 ants. They are either building a ball of yellow sticky stuff or picking it up and taking it away. Looking at the leaves I see a few small bugs here and there. They don't look like what I get on my jasmine but the small bugs must be the problem. I assume aphids. They're much small than the ants and I really can't see much detail on them. My eyes aren't that great and the neighbor might think I'm losing it if he sees me looking at trees leaves with a magnifying glass and a flashlight. LOL.
Oil tomorrow morning. I guess you have to just check day to day until they're gone. Probably a good idea to switch back and forth from oil to soap if I need to reapply a few times??
I don't think my camera will take a good picture of all this but I'll give it a try in case someone else has this problem.
Forgot That I took this picture. This what the ants were after. A yellow sticky substance in that whitish sack.
Looks like a large scale insect. In photo #2, you have a sucker coming up from the rootstock. Need to keep it cut off.
I do keep the suckers off that was a new one in the picture.
Never did figure out what exactly was going on but all the trees are growing trouble free now. Problem seemed to be thrips or aphids. In fact the citrus trees have been very problem free if I can get them past the spring time attack. Happened two years in a row.
This message was edited Sep 1, 2008 5:01 PM
I'm curious, has the citrus leafminer spread to your area from down here (Fl.)? I was quite surprised to find out that tangerine is listed as an invasive plant in South Carolina!
This leafminer gets into Viburnums, Gardenias, Citrus, Ligustrum and on and on and on.
I saw no sign of it on your plant photos.
It's basically the same as the tomato leaf miner; different species.
I do not believe we have citrus leafminers. I do know that citrus is not allowed to be brought up here from Fla. at the moment.
Trifoliate orange is on that list and every one of my citrus is on that root stock. Flying dragon to be exact.
I'm not seeing Tangerines on the invasive SC list??? My tangerine is my favorite favor wise.
Here's a website that does list it as a noxious weed in SC...seems kind of weird to me though, I never thought of citrus as being invasive anywhere especially a state where it's going to be borderline hardy in many areas http://www.invasive.org/listview.cfm?list=11
