Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Asimina triloba: leaf problems

I've been away for about a week in Germany and this morning inspected developments on the fruit-bearing trees. I was surprised to find some of the newer leaves on the Wells were curling in a funny way and felt leathery in a way that pawpaw leaves don't usually feel. 


Looking at this picture, I'm noticing a lady bug at the top of one of the leaves, and I'm wondering if the lady bug is hanging out and eating whatever it is that's affecting the leaves.


Here's another shot with the lady bug more in focus.

Still the Wells cultivar. Strange because I don't remember seeing this in previous years.


Here you can see that they're not all curled


After looking at the Wells, I walked over to the Shenandoah and saw that the leaf curl was here too, though not such a bad case, apparently.

Another view of the Shenandoah

The KSU-Atwood didn't seem to have any leaf curl. But it did have a few leaves that looked like they had been eaten from.


So, not sure what'd going on with the leaves. Any ideas?


Update on 14 July 2016
On the curling leaves, I've emailed with Sheri Crabtree (Horticulture Research and Extension Associate at KSU) and she's suggested that the problem may be a calcium deficiency can cause curling and cupping like I'm seeing. She recommended a fertilizer with calcium nitrate or calcium sulfate, and cautioned against using too much lime on pawpaws because that can raise the pH in unhealthy ways. (She also said aphids or mites can cause similar damage but said it's likely not that, since in my email I told her I hadn't seen any insects; she commented that it doesn't look like overexposure to the sun, since the leaves would look brown/scorched and drop off the tree

She commented that the damage to the KSU-Atwood could be caused by a caterpillar and mentioned the zebra swallowtail, which the pawpaw is the exclusive plant host for. But that would be curious to have a zebra swallowtail caterpillar in Utah, where there are so few pawpaws. Interesting to think that another type of caterpillar in Utah may have deemed the pawpaw an acceptable host.








2 comments:

  1. Bonjour .je rencontre le meme probleme sur plusieurs pawpaws .avez vous trouvez la cause ?merci

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  2. De mon cote en france j arrose beaucoup (avec de l eau calcaire) et il a fait quelques journees tres chaude.

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