My two year old pear and a few of my one year old apples have some issues. They seem pretty healthy, but I’ve noticed the start of some possible fungus or virus problems. These are photos of three separate trees, one with curling leaves but no other signs of stress, one with some bubbles and black spots on a few leaves, and one with rust spots.
Anyone know what’s going on with these and the proper treatment? Should I start doing an annual spray in the spring of something?
The pear looks like it has pear blister mites. I had them too this year. I just pulled of the infected leaves, but if the whole tree is full of them, that may not be possible or wise. I remember reading that you can spray against pear blister mites in early spring with an oil.
The first and the third pics are cedar apple rust on your apples. Very common disease. Fungicide such as myclobutanil is effective to spray against it. However, it would be better to spray before those spots show up.
The middle pic is pear blister mites. I like to spray it with lime-sulfur at bud break. But lime-sulfur is harder to find. Micronized wettable sulfur is another spraying option.
Thanks for the info. I removed the dozen or so leaves with mites and sprayed with a general pesticide. I also ordered some myclobutanil for the cedar rust.
Any thoughts on the tree with curling leaves but no spots?
I hadn’t given much thought to a spray routine since the trees aren’t fruiting yet and I removed the flowers from the few that budded this year. Seems like that was a less than great bit of laziness. I know the forum has some great posts on spray routines so Ill get some ideas for a plan for next season.
Leaves curled without pests could be too hot (weather), too dry (soil) etc.
Don’t waste your pesticide on pear mites. Waste of your time. You may end up kill beneficial insects unintentionally.
Your issues are very common. Search old post for info. On the upper right hand corner of the page, your will see a lokking glass symbol. It is a search function.
Click on it.
A dialog box will show up.
Type in key words i.e. cedar apple rust or pear blister mites.
Many threads with those issues will show up. All the answers will be there for you.
As Mamuang says, these are common problems. I’ve definitely had them on my trees. One thing I’ve noticed with both the CAR and blister mites is that they seem to hit harder on newer, less-established trees. For example, I had a number of trees get hit with CAR the first year after I moved them out of their nursery, but as they settled in, the problems seem to have diminished. In somewhat similar fashion, the new growth on the pears that I grafted this year got hit by the blister mites, but the growth on more established trees has been comparatively unscathed. So, my sense is that these can be things that trees grow out of.
By the way: Have you checked the curled leaves for something hiding inside them? I’ve seen aphids do that to my apple trees. And maybe also look for evidence of leafhoppers?
From my experience, spider mites are similar to soil mites so general pesticides might work too. I mean, anything that contains pyrethrins should work. Of course, you may use a homemade solution, as was mentioned on my blog, something like cinnamon mixture, a garlic-based solution, and dish soap with starch.
