Leaf Curl

[greenfig]

Wow, @gspom79 I think you hit it!
Thanks.
It seems a Neem oil spray may help with this pest. Although the first post in this thread mentioned the low effectiveness of the Neem oil.
I will treat the trees after they are done flowering, just in case. For some reason only one of several is affected the most, maybe it is more susceptible (less resistant).

Update: more searches came up with sulfur dust .
Like this one https://expertsystm.wixsite.com/pomegra ... page/mites

A warning from the label: not to use 30 days before/after an oil application (Neem?)

[pogrmman]

I believe your leaf curl problem is a mite. Look up Aceria granati on the web and see if the pictures of the pomegranate damage cause by this mite match your leaf problem.

Graham

Thank you so much! That’s 100% right. On a hunch, I grabbed this leaf and this terminal bud off of a little cutting.

5BFC122A-3A5A-458E-8C2E-8C27D7181AB7.jpeg (499.33 KiB) Viewed 1403 times

I took the terminal bud under my microscope and dissected it. Sure enough, deep inside, I found a tiny, tube-shaped thing crawling around with four legs at the front. Looking at photos of other mites in the genus Aceria, it looks like I found the culprit! This photo isn’t very good because it’s just with my phone, but I circled the mite I found. For a sense of scale, the leaf it is on was completely enclosed in the bud and is only like 3 mm long, so the mite is on the order of .1 mm or less.

F92FBA8F-C591-4EFF-8EC1-2272B774B957.jpeg (258.31 KiB) Viewed 1403 times

Because it was deeply embedded inside the terminal bud, I’m not sure how well a surface treatment like neem oil will work for them. It really seems like you’d need a systemic to rid your trees of it. This was on the third set of leaves — you have the outermost, unfurling leaves, then another layer that was completely enclosed, then this set was inside of those.

[pombazaar]

Most of my first year trees got hit with leaf curl pretty bad this season. I'm yet to determine if it's a fungal disease or mite but will be checking soon. How are your trees looking now? I'm curious if you had any luck treating your mite problem with neem oil?

[pogrmman]

I didn’t see any immediate results from neem but I didn’t get much good growth afterwords because the pots got a tad dry (oops). I’m also going to try a spray just as they’re starting to bud out in the spring to see if I can nip out the problem early. It’s been worse the past couple years because we’ve seemingly stopped having actual winters now, just like a lot of other pest issues — if I'm remembering things right, we haven’t had a freeze colder than 30° here since January 18, 2018 which is absolutely insane considering we’re supposed to be borderline 8b/9a.

[glideher]

hello all
i am having similar issues to my one year old pom tree, she is growing very fast but noticed the leaves are curling, see attached photo.
i have looked under side and i find no mites or pests, could this be due to over watering, or over feeding with miracle grow?

dlg gliders rc gliders

[pombazaar]

@glideher - Yours to me does not look like leaf curl due to spider mites or Aceria granati as @gspom79 mentioned. All of the previous posts in this thread regarding leaf curl are 100% due to mites.

@greenfig, @pogrmman - I still hold that neem oil is the best solution to ward off mites. Most of the trees on my patio are affected and my patio is of course crawling with mites. It's critical to ensure you get the undersides of the leaves when you spray. It's probably not going to cure leaves that have already been damaged but should prevent leaf curl on new growth.

[pombazaar]

An observation I’ve made this year is that leaf curl does not occur on year 2+ branches. It only appears on some of my pomegranates on first season growth. I don't believe any of my trees are infected with mites. Furthermore, trees that root out of the bottom of their containers and go into the ground do not seem to exhibit this behavior.

A nutrient deficiency is certainty possible but why would it only affect new growth?

[pogrmman]

@glideher - Yours to me does not look like leaf curl due to spider mites or Aceria granati as @gspom79 mentioned. All of the previous posts in this thread regarding leaf curl are 100% due to mites.

@greenfig, @pogrmman - I still hold that neem oil is the best solution to ward off mites. Most of the trees on my patio are affected and my patio is of course crawling with mites. It's critical to ensure you get the undersides of the leaves when you spray. It's probably not going to cure leaves that have already been damaged but should prevent leaf curl on new growth.

The big 2021 freeze took care of the mites. Almost every pomegranate was knocked back to the ground — they all came back vigorously and I was even able to harvest some fruit this year! But I haven’t seen the mite issue since the freeze.

I’m guessing they’ll come back with more warm winters, but I won’t have to deal with them for a few years now.