AmberNichole

I have 3 citrus trees in pots. One is a Key Lime, one is a Calamondin (aka tiny sour orange) and one is a pink lemon. The key lime and the Calamondin are getting attacked by what i think are leaf miners. I'm not 100% so i was wondering if you amazing green thumb people can help me either figure out what to do, or figure out what is is and what to do. Here are a couple pics, the first is the key lime and the 2 others are the Calamondin. THANKS!

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Bananaman88

Yes, it is citrus leaf miner. You can spray them with a product containing Spinosad. Look for the Green Light brand. You need to spray at each flush of new growth. The spinosad won't completely stop them but it will help. Lowe's usually carries some of the Green Light stuff. The good think is that the leaf minor, while it looks bad, doesn't really affect the overall health or fruiting of the plant. I've seen huge citrus trees covered with this down here in TX and yet full of fruit. Good luck!

Hershell

You are correct, leaf miners.

AmberNichole

yeah, they were both fruiting like crazy but (espically) the key lime dropped 90% of it's half ripe fruit. The Calamondin hasn't dropped it's fruit, but it seems to have slowed. Thanks for the info!!!!

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sbl

You do have a really bad case of leaf miners! As Bananaman said, Spinosad will help, so will frequent sprays with horticultural oil (as long as temperatures are below 85). But, the best results I have had come from traps by Iscatech. Right now, I do not have a single miner on my trees. I set out a trap at the end of May and 5 days later I had over 200 adult moths in the trap. I have just one trap that I move around my 7 trees.

You can find them online (Iscatech.com), but unfortunately they are not widely available in stores.

The damage from miners can increase susceptability to disease and if the infestation is more that 10% of the leaves, it can affect productivity.

Bananaman88

Your fruit drop could be associated with moisture stress as well. If they dry out too much at any point they will sometimes abort the fruit in response. I haven't seen a single leaf miner on my citrus yet this year (which is very uncommon). I'm sure they'll turn up sooner or later. As sbl mentioned, horticultural oil is another good way to stop them (and several other pests) but I would guess you are way above the 85 degree limit by now. Great tip on the traps, sbl, thanks for that!

jeffreyp

you can spray the trunks with Admire to control clm.

AmberNichole

Thanks for all the info. I found this under my sink, would this work? It's called Sunniland citrus & Ornamental Spray. It says the active ingredients are

malathion 0.0 dimethyl phosphoridithicate of diechyl
mercaptosuccinate 5%
petroleum oils 75%

Not sure exactly what those are though lol

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Bananaman88

I wouldn't spray Malathion on anything you plan to eat anytime soon! It's pretty rough stuff. Be sure to read the label as it will tell you what it is safe to spray it on. It may strictly say to NOT spray on edible plants.

jeffreyp

AmberNichole

Yeah all it say for citrus is to wait 7 days after applying before harvesting citrus. I know citrus is the only edible you can use it on and it will kill most other plants i think lol

The Admire stuff seems really awesome, there is one person in my area that sells it so i'm going to check it out. I have had a lot of problems with aphids on my cranberry hibiscus and it seems like it would work for that too. (the spray i have pretty much instantly kills the hibiscus) Thanks!

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jeffreyp

call a couple citrus growers in your area, they could probably sell you a small amount.

cowboyup4christ

sevn dust or spray it works for my Japanese persimmons the leaf curler ants seem to love them for some reason, I spray them with it and the ants and japanesse beetles go away. the fruit drop could be from stress due to a dry period or from too much nitrogen as well , it turn dry for a week and my fuyus drop about 50% of their crop.

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