I need some assistance in determining what is wrong with my poor trees!

I noticed this the other day, I am leaning towards frost damage because we had a few nights where temps dropped real low, almost to freezing, I think 34 or so. I covered the trees as I normally do, but noticed this blackening of the leaves the day after, so they were like this during the other nights of the cold temps. I also noticed red spider looking critters, mites, I suppose, along with fine strands of web going from branch to branch on my meyer tree, but not on the others. (I am going to spray with soapy water as suggested in another post regarding mites)
I haven't noticed any other pests on my trees, it was just yesterday that I saw the red mite on my meyer, I found only one and it got flicked off the tree in a hurry.

This leaf damage only happened on my pink grapefruit and my valencia orange. The meyer doesn't have older leaves, just new leaf growth, and the most cold sensitive (my key lime) has no damage of any kind. Odd, but it's okay, I'm definitely not complaining!

When I touch the black areas, it crumbles at the touch, and when I touch the green areas on the same leaf, it falls right off the limb.

How do I stop this from damaging the rest of the tree, and is there anything I can do? It's only on the leaves, by the way, I did not notice any limb/trunk damage.

Thank you in advance!
Christine

Valencia Orange


Pink Grapefruit


Grapefruit

Christine:
There's not much you can do with that blackened leaves. All you can do is just clip them off so your plant will look pretty. Soon it will be covered with new growth and you'll forget about it.
There should not have any damage to the rest of the tree. That part was exposed to the freeze and freeze itself.

Thank you Bencelest, that's what I thought it was, but I just needed a second opinion. I've been pulling off the dead leaves, but I think I'll just trim them back a little bit.

Thank you,
Christine

Christine:
May I suggest not to pull the leaves by hand but use scissors or a trimmer and clip them. That way you are gentle with the branch and the tree itself. Just like when you harvest your fruit off the tree. Don't pull them by hand. Sometimes you leave a part of the fruit to the tree and fungus may start there. Use scissors or trimmer. And the tree won't feel the trauma.

Looks like frost damage to me. All of my inground citrus have been putting out new growth and blossom buds for the last several weeks so when we got the light freeze last Sunday night it bit my Ambersweet orange pretty good. The Meyer lemon had some very minor damage. The rest had no damage at all. Sort of odd the way one new growth tip will burn while one six inches away that's also new growth will be fine.

I'm not trimming any of mine unless there's an entire branch dead or something.

.....Alan.

Thanks for the insight bencelest. I will use my shears to nip off the dead leaves. So far it doesn't look like it affected the branches this time, but one of the most recent frosts we've had here in N. Fl, split the bark on the branches, and now even those have healed. After reading Laaz and Millet's responses to another post I made about the split bark and frost, I feel reassured that my poor trees won't die and they will recover with time.

Alan, I think the reason that some of the leaves on my trees have damage while others don't, is because of the sheet I was using to cover them. I had bamboo stakes to hold the sheets up so they did not touch the leaves, but I noticed the sheets had shifted when I checked them the next morning. So either the wind or my dumb dog did it. He's a stake thief, he thinks everything that looks like a stick, is a stick for him to play with. It's not the first time the sheets have touched the leaves, but it IS the first time I've had frost damage on them. I'm sure the 80 degree weather we've had recently, and then the 3 cold nights we've had didn't help either.

I also understand that the trees won't blossom and put out fruit unless they are stressed. How do I stress the trees to induce budding?

Christine

You just did it. I mean the nature ( sudden drop of tempt) did it.