I have a Nectarine out in the open,that was sprayed with Bonide's Fung-onil(Chlorothalonil),once in the Fall and twice in late Winter/early Spring and the the tree still had it on almost every branch tip. The probable reason may have been,that the March precipitation was one of the highest if not the most recorded for this area. I also have a dwarf Peach in a container,which was sprayed too,but was brought into a carport during rainy times and didn't suffer any PLC. There are also two young Nectarines planted under one hundred foot tall Douglas Firs,that have a very small amount of the disease,even with the same spraying.They are sheltered somewhat by the boughs of the larger trees. I went a workshop where Gary Moulton,who was the head of the fruit horticulture program at the WSU extension research station,said that if possible,keeping the rain off the trees from bud break to leafing out will go a long way to curb this infection. Now I know that this for most people,is not practical or possible,but I think it's something I may try,at least the one Nectarine.Maybe some kind of large clear plastic umbrella or shelter and it only has to be in place for a few weeks. Brady

Hello all, I live in the Bay Area. I have posted a picture of the sadness that is my potted dwarf clementine. I got this tree from Home Depot 4 years ago. That was the last time it was healthy. It is still only 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide. I feel like it hasn't grown at all since I bought it. After I bought it, ants got to it and there were scale insects everywhere. I used rubbing alcohol to get them off and the ants have been gone for a while but I think are coming back. But since then this tree has been very sickly and never has produced again. I have attached a picture of some of the leaves with a curling leaf. You can also see that the rest of the leaves around that curling leaf are yellowish and very small/narrow. You can see how small they are in comparison to my fingernail. I have small hands. There is a tiny little clementine fruit in the photo that will fall off in a few days. All the other ones have fallen off while that size. There are spikes growing off the branches, and some of them have black specks on it that look like scale insects, but I can't rub them off. Other leaves have brownish gunk on the undersides of them that looks like gunky sap. Please give some advice about how to save this tree. It has a host of problems and I don't know where to start. I currently water it with a drip system of 10 minutes 2x a day, once in the morning, again in the afternoon. Every three months I feed it with Vigoro brand citrus/avocado tree fertilizer granules, about 2/3 tsp at a time. What else should I do? Thanks for your help!!

Old topic but wanted to share my input. I'm growing hydroponic tomatoes (various strains) at university in a lab setting (indoors under HID lights) and outdoors in a greenhouse. In one of my greenhouse NFT systems, i recently had a similar problem on 1 tomato plant (total 9 plants that share the same res and tubes). But im gonna try to diagnose your issue by mentioning what others missed out on. 1 major cause of leaf curl is compaction of root system (i.e. roots are compressed or dont have enough space to expand). This risk is exacerbated in hydroponic systems that use tubes. This was the problem i had and had to replace tubes with square tubings that have a liftable top. Once you have access to roots, you must seperate them strand by strand (i.e. so they arent sticking together). In your setup, this risk will further be exacerbated because you filled the entire pvc tube with hydroton (right?). Remove hydroton from tube and place the plant in a net cup with hydroton. Nitrogen burns usually cause browning/yellowing of leaves (similar to sun/heat burn) and not purpling. Test your solution for each chemical if possible, or use a commonly employed aggregated measuring device that shows total concentration in ppm (dont let it exceed 2500). In my system, only one plant was affected. Coincidentally, it was the largest of all plants with the most root mass. I let another normal one grow to its size to see whether it would undergo the same problem, and it did. Viral and bacterial infections that cause leaf roll usually cause it to roll up. Same with the physiological roll. If your leafs roll down AND if your stems bend, this is caused by a diminishing turgor pressure (read: not enough water reaching afflicted area). Mist several times when lights are off (no photosysnthesis) and observe increasing turgor pressure (unbending). Or, untangle roots and remove hydroton from from pipes. I tested various growing methods including fully and partially submerged roots. They all work but a submerged root cannot intake oxygen; it has to borrow oxygen from another part of the plant (i.e. a root part that isnt submerged or above ground stem). This requires energy for transportion and isnt the most efficient (optimal) way for growth and cellular processes. Lastly, an airstone in the reservoir is useless unless the reservoir is completely airtight all the way up to the plant holes. Better to keep small airstones in the pipes right under the plant roots. Those that say aerating the res prevents bacterial development.. is false. If you dont have air in res, you will get anaerobic bacteria (they grow/accumulate slowly but acidify the solution); if you have air in res, you get aerobic bacteria (not acidifying but grow extremely fast). Most bacteria prefer aerobic environments for optimum growth.

What do you mean by Water: 5 gallons of RO water that is around 300 PPM before I ad nutes ?RO water ppm is usually well under 10 ppm. If you are using such dilute nutrients and if by: weak 12.5 ml of each nutrient and then three weeks later which was also very weak, you mean you are using about two teaspoons of Grow, Bloom and Micro (total 6 teaspoons) as the total nutrient in your 5 gallon solution, then your plants are nutrient starving and the older leave might be dying as the plants send certain limiting nutrients from the old growth to the young ones. At this point, I would do something like: Grow: 12.5 ml *per gallon* (63 ml = 5 gal) Micro: 6.25 ml *per gallon* (32 ml = 5 gal) No way to get around feeding your kids if you want them to grow big strong and nutritious, but two weeks ought to be fine and three weeks if you get lazy. The plant needs a minimum nutrient strength to start pumping nutrients now that they are out of the seedling stage. If you really are using RO water, you will need to supplement with Calcium and Magnesium though. But that is not clear. Better to just use two days of sun tanned tap water (to drive out reactive chlorination as best as you can) with a "ppm" of around 150-300. Then, put a computer fan or two in there so there is a slight breeze to increase transpiration. Basil likes warm temperatures and transpires more in them. You have a relatively cool environment. For that reason nutes will need to be even stronger so the plant can get its dose. I think you have a good setup and the plants ought to be healthy, but you are running into a combination of these problems of nutrient deficiencies.