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Citrus Leaf Miner

5 years ago

Lots of people get CLM and are told to remove the leaf and throw it away. I have paid a great deal of attention to them this summer and noticed the miners are only found on the new flushes. I inspect my trees daily during the growing season, kill the larvae as soon as I can find them with my fingers and allow the leaf to remain. I have even caught the insect pupating. Most times the leaves are not too bad looking. The damage is only cosmetic and the leaf continues to function as it's suppose to.

My question is what happens if you do remove every leaf that is infected. There have been times when I have found every leaf in a new flush to have them. Will a new leaf take its place if you remove the infected one?

It really irritates me to see a tree defoliated if it's not necessary.

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Comments (2)

katiebeth128_wv_6b
5 years ago
Denise, I had bought an orangequat a while back from a reputable nursery, it was the only tree in the shipment with any damage from CLM on it. I was terrified it would spread to the rest of my collection, so any leaf that had signs of CLM damage on the tree I plucked and sealed in a bag and threw away.

The tree looked kind of sad for a week, then the next week the tree started to bud out lower on the tree, towards the graft line, and later filled in (ironically?) near where most of the damaged leaves were plucked.

I think phototropism explains it - the tree is taking advantage of it now getting more light from the empty space that used to have its leaves occupying it, if that makes sense. In some situations, this might lead the tree to lean more towards replacing the canopy where it may have been lost, if the space is still available.

I think perhaps the CLM damage to the leaves may have spurred it to make the new flushes, and maybe not my plucking them after, but I really don't know for sure.

I now see that a lot of people recommend just spraying new flushes for CLM if you spray at all, and to monitor new growth only, not bothering with plucking damaged leaves as any green that is left on the damaged leaves is still contributing to photosynthesis.
Denise Becker
Original Author
5 years ago
This year I learned to use fish emulsion on my plants. I noticed that the more new growth I had on my plants, the more of a pest problem I had to deal with. I had more white flies than ever before in addition to the CLM. Towards the end of this growing season, I purchased a variegated minneola and a variegated pink Eureka. To prevent CLM on the new growth of these two trees, I covered both with tulle at night. I may do that with all my trees as the CLM is active during the dark hours.
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I had the same problem last year. This is what I did: Waited for spring when the new growth is developing. I think it was around May. Usually there aren't really leafminers yet. But I sprayed the tree with a product called ORGANICIDE that I bought from Lowe's. It is supposedly safe for fruits and citrus. I sprayed alot of the new growth and it worked. No leafminers. But you will ALSO have to spray sometime in the summer, around July. If you wait til August, the leafminers seem to come out during this time and it will affect more new growth. The good thing is all the new growth you sprayed in the spring will become older and not affected. SO at least you wont lose so much of it. The key is to have unaffected older growth. Leafminers only like new growth. They don't touch the older leaves. For now all you can do is cut the infected leaves, or just leave it and wait til spring.
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My gut reaction tells me no. There are systemic pesticides that will work, but generally these are only acceptable for ornamental use and probably cause unsafe fruit. Foliar spray is really the only way to control CLM. Citrus grows leaves in "flushes", and all you need to do is watch for the emerging leaf buds and spray two or three times over the next few evenings. I've had good luck with neem oil, although others use fish emulsion (stinks, though). I spray in the evening so the oil has a chance to dry a bit and not burn the leaves in the sun, although you will lose some older leaves. Some citrus trees are tastier to CLM than others -- hence, your observation that their infestation wasn't equal amongst your trees. Also, different citrus trees might have slightly different timing on their growth flushes (CLM only attack new leaves), so, one tree having a worse infestation than another may simply be because that tree recently put out new leaves. Bruce C.
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