Hi! Thanks everyone for your help with my Orange tree on the other thread. I planted this Lime Tree I got from Home Depot about a month ago. All the new growth is coming out mangled. My Key Lime I bought from another nursery doesn't have this problem, nor does my 2 Lemon trees I bought around the same time. I'm new to gardening. I'm not sure what the problem is, please help. Thanks! Travis - San Diego, CA.

You have a nice infestation of CLM. Citrus Leaf Miner. Do a search and you will get your answer.

Here is a link to a recent thread on leafminers. You have a good picture of them-- the next to last picture, you can see a larvae on the lower right at the end of one of the trails-- that little yellow spot. There are also several pupae where you see the fold in the leaves.

link

Thanks guys! Bummer it's CLM. I can't wait to get home and squish them, LOL. My lime tree is pretty small still so I'll have to decide to either let them ruin my leaves or get some Spinosad stuff. Looks like the CLM are most destructive to Limes, so that's a bummer.
I found this link with a lot of good info....

http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/ipc/biocontrol/83bc-citruspests.htm

That is a good link, but just so you know, the Admire and Agri-mek (trade names for imidacloprid) are systemic, meaning that the pesticide is taken up by the tree and dispersed throughout to levels that kill any insects that eat any part of the citrus. I Europe it is blamed for killing bees through contact with the pollen of plants that have been treated with it.

The point is, don't use it if the tree is going to bloom and produce fruit anytime soon.

I was able to get the parasite that has been released in Florida for Univ of FL and release it here (A. citricola), and I have seen some of them this year, but I still have leaf miners, just not as bad as last year.

My primary defense is the horticultural oil on all new flushes every few days (in the evening).

Cool, thanks Skeeter. Yeah, I was reading about the Admire stuff and decided that was nasty stuff, so I won't be using that.

Is the Spinosad stuff OK to use? The label says it's organic.

Yesterday I was looking around at Home Depot and I saw the horticultural oil and they had 2 types. One was Ortho Volck which is 97% Petroleum Oil. The other type was some type of Organic oil which was 97% Canola oil. Can I just go to the grocery store and by some canola cooking oil and save some money?

Finally, I was wondering what was the nursery using to protect the tree? If you look at my photos. on the dark green leaves, which is the older growth from the nursery there's white spots all over the leaves. All the citrus trees I've seen in the nurseries have the white spots on them. I wonder what they were sprayed with?

Thanks,
Travis

Spinosad is considered organic--it is an extract of a bacterial fermentation (the bacteria was isolated from soil I believe). I don't really care about the fact that it is organic, I like the fact that it has very low toxicity to mammals (close to the toxicity of table salt) and it is not very persistient (half life is less than 2 days in sunlight). The oil will increase persistience and canola oil will probably work as well as horticultural oil for that.

As for what the nurseries use, many of them use imidacloprid, or they grow the plants inside a screen house (the screen house is a new requirement for all citrus nurseries in Florida since greening can be spread by a bite from the asian psyllid).