I have 3 cherry trees about 3 years old. Two of them are disease-free so far and the are Lapin and Montgomery, but the Bing Cherry has a leaf disease that I could not identify. About 1/4 of the leaves have the curling “bubbles” like in the pictures and they will turn brown and die in late spring or early summer. It started happened in the second year. I suspected that it may be fungus, so starting from last year, I sprayed oil and copper as well as Chlorothalinol in the fall, winter and spring. But last week, when the first leaves started coming out, it looks like the spray didn’t help. What cause it and how do I get rid of it?
Thank you for suggestion. I did some readings about Cherry Mottle Leaf Virus and the symptoms don’t seem to match what I experienced. The problem on my Bing cherry leaves only happened with new growths. Most of the infection were not on the whole leaf. If half a leaf has blister, it would not spread when the leaf matured. The blistered part would turn brown and dry up by early summer. If it is the whole leaf, it would die and fall off. The Bing cherry tree is about 10 feet from the other cherry trees but the other trees seemed not affected. The symptoms were better matched with leaf curl disease but I was puzzled why Chlorothalinol and copper did not work. The last dose of Chlorothalinol was about a month ago when the buds started swelling.
It does look like a leaf curl disease as opposed to a virus. Maybe leaf curl on cherries doesn’t respond to the same treatments as peach leaf curl. It could also be a virus but those usually produce yellowing and are more mottled in the pattern.
Where are you located? In many places Bing is not a good cherry variety so the easiest route could just be to replace the tree.
