Any one have any ideas about why these apple leaves are curling. It is happening on some apple trees and not others. It is hot and dry and windy here but we water…
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My first thought is that at depth, the roots are short on water or have been chewed by something.
I’ve got the same thing on apples and persimmon. I’ve seen the same thing on potted figs. I suspect it’s water related, a shortage at one point or another. It doesn’t really seem to affect the fruit. So I roll on and don’t worry about it. Extra watering doesn’t help.
My persimmon leaves seemed to roll up right after the temperature dropped briefly to 28F on April 30. I expect a normal crop.
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I s’pose I could upload pictures too, but they are very similar so probably no need. I was puzzling over the same thing while watering last night. Old Pierre, Orleans Reinette, Orleans, Gravenstein, Wykken, Sweet 16, completely unaffected with Stayman, St. Cecilia, Arkansas Black and Belle de Boskoop with leaves like the ones you’ve shown. I do try to give consistent irrigation but some spots in the yard seem to drain a bit faster and they aren’t all on the same rootstock either so maybe it is a water issue. I do tend to let things dry before I irrigate again maybe some cultivars are more sensitive to that than others. Most have been in the ground for 4 years now with no apparent impact on growth with Stayman proving to be fairly precocious with ugly leaves every year and delicious fruit. Hot dry and windy describes our conditions as well.
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It is more variety dependent than site location in my opinion. My Court Pendu Plat look like that for most of the growing season and they grow just fine. I noticed all my Maslin no matter the location started doing it this week as well.
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Thank you for the observation. Aren’t you in interior Mendocino? If so we’ve got nothing on you for hot dry and windy at this time of year. Guess I could just look at your profile rather than ask but… My inputs into the orchard are minimal to say the least so the misshapen leaves really bugged me the first couple of years thinking perhaps there was something a more proactive fella could spray. But they do seem to grow just fine and things need to be tough in this yard or they get dug up. How good an apple is CPP for you? Sounds as if you like it enough to have multiple trees. I shied away from it for fear of fireblight with a late bloom but I’ve only had one outbreak in 6 years and I think that was too much N from the bonemeal at planting, more than something that needs to be worried about annually here.
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Thanks for all of the input everyone. This is not the first time that I have noticed this by any means, and the trees seem to be doing fine, but I was wondering. 
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I agree with that. I have Suncrisp that does the leaf rolling thing but other varieties are fine mere feet away. I also made sure to look last year and the Suncrisp at the local u-pick and it had curly, cruddy looking (not diseased) foliage. If you want a cultivar with lush looking foliage plant Liberty… 
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Leafhoppers often make leaves curl like that.
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Orleans (from Stark Bros) was the one tree I have that the leafhoppers feasted on. The past 2 seasons it’s been untroubled by them or anything else. The first 2 seasons nearly every leaf was skeletonized but it is a fine healthy tree now, not particularly precocious though so I can’t offer an opinion on the apple.
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