I have a 3 year old pear tree (Stark Honeysweet dwarf), and its young leaves and stems seem to be corkscrewed. Any ideas on the cause?
It doesn’t look like pictures of leaf curl fungus or insect damage that I’ve seen. It has happened pretty much every year we’ve had it. The leaves on more mature wood don’t seem to be corkscrewed.
Looks like it got a wiff of 2-4D herbicide. Its can be volatile. Especially in hot weather.
Crop farmers, the county road crews, and turf sprays. The usual culprits.
Its a growth hormone. So the plant kind of grows excessively.
From my experience your pear will probably grow out if it.
I agree, 2-4D. I got a bad hit of it this year all over my property. Pears are apparently more susceptible than many trees, as are apricots and I think sweet cherries. All took significant damage, and appear to not be putting on new growth still, a month later.
The apples on the other hand, which were in the front row, are already powering out of it, as are many of the plums.
Like the OP I’d seen lesser versions of this damage for years (on pears mostly)and thought it was a fungus or disease. But the widespread and severe damage this year finally made me realize the culprit. Downside of being surrounded by farm ground on three sides.
We suspected 2,4-d last year and we were hoping it missed us this year since the tulip trees and peonies didn’t show it. Turns out the culprit is… us. We farm the field on the other side of the road from our tree, and it was sprayed with 2,4-d. So we know when it’s going to be sprayed.
Does it do any good to cover the tree? It’s just a dwarf, so it’s manageable. I suspected it wouldn’t help since this is probably volatilization, not spray drift.
Is there any chance this is leftover effects from getting dinged last year? I found cityman’s epic after your suggestions, and it seemed like he had troubles the next year yet.
Thanks for your help, folks
Did this to myself a couple weeks ago with triclopyr. Had no idea of the volatility issue.
Boiler,
You may look at Enlist as it is supposed to be a lot less volatile for your burn down.
I have big maples along my driveway, and every year they have a funny look to them after they spray. I told them no more LV6 One year it was horrible, but tree came out next year. Sometimes drift of other herbicides can have a longer effect.
I think your pear is getting the dose this year. When they start making curlicues or turn black you need to worry.
I never saw carry over in our nursery stock from light 2 4 d damage. Once they drifted something I think it was Dual that persisted for several years as stunted growth and death. Had to call the state in on that one.
We use Enlist in our post emergence spray and it costs almost twice what the 2,4-d in our burndown does. I could buy about 100 new pear trees for the cost difference in one year on our farm. We use an adjuvant to reduce drift, but we seem to get some issues anyway.
Dual is a residual that usually gets added to liberty or enlist or maybe even just round up in the soybean post spray. It is supposed stick around until the beans canopy, but they must have really messed up the dose to have it last for years.
