Xtremehorticulture

Citrus Leaves Curling Yellowing Dropping

Q. Hello again! 
I have a puzzling issue happening with a few citrus trees
(out of many).  The leaves are curling, yellowing, and ultimately
dropping. 
I attached a few pictures in hopes you could shed some
light on the issue. 
(Any iron deficiencies you see are from trying to extend
the time between treatments, something I’ve been trying to perfect; seems like
every 6 weeks is the sweet spot.)
I appreciate any help you can give me, I’d hate to see
these trees die! 

Leaf rolling like this on citrus can be a watering problem

Add caption


A. If the leaves are rolling or curling into a cigar shape, then this is
typically a lack of water. The leaves can turn yellow and drop from the tree if
it continues. A lack of water can be from not giving each tree enough water or
it can result from not watering frequently enough. 



Strangely, the same can
result if you are watering too often but it almost never results from giving a
tree too much water in a single application. My suggestion to you, if these
trees aren’t drip emitters, is to make sure that each tree has at least four
drip emitters. 



Replace these emitters with emitters that double the application
rate. In other words, if these are 2 gallon per our email letters, replace them
with 4 gallon per hour emitters. This allows you to keep the same number of
minutes on your irrigation timer and not overwatering other plants on the same
valve. 



I would strongly advise you not to use adjustable drip emitters for this
purpose. They can be extremely difficult to adjust properly since they seem to
act like “whack a mole” when you try to adjust them.



Visit this page from the University of Arizona on citrus problems in the landscape

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