Trident health

[chris38383838]

Hi everybody. I have some concerns with the health of my trident and certain of my other trees. I've started my greenhouse something like 2-3 weeks ago (my trees overwinter in an isolated heated box) and it's only my second year using the greenhouse. Recently, I've noticed that some of my trees, especially my trident maple, have some of their leaves that are curly (see the pictures) and it keeps getting worse. My other trees that are affected are a pyracantha, a kurume azalea and a japanese plum. I can't get to decide wether it is that the air is too dry since my 1500W heater runs more than half of the time, or that I water too much (I water once a day in the morning). The thing is, the air is quite dry because of the heater, but the temperatures don't go high enough to dry out the soil, so the air is dry but the soil stays wet (at least in surface) all the time. Anybody has some ideas on what could be causing those curly leaves?

 

[chris38383838]

Here are some other shots:

 

[lordy]

in photo 4 of the first post you can see what looks like a lot of finer roots up on the surface. If that is what is seen, that would be a good place to start. Those babies dont want to be exposed to the air for very long. And the 3 photos in the 2nd post show water droplets on the leaves. Also can be a problem.
If you are simply watering on a schedule instead of when the soil is dry, you may have soil that is drowning the roots. An easy way that you can monitor the moisture levels in your pots is to insert a bamboo stick or chopstick into the soil and leave it there. Pull it out every day and see if the stick is dry. If not dry, dont water the tree that day.

 

[nathanbs]

looks fungal to me. Try Bayer rose 3-in-1 its a systemic fungicide, insecticide and fertilizer. You put the granules on the soil surface and as you water the roots will take it up.

 

[GarlR]

in photo 4 of the first post you can see what looks like a lot of finer roots up on the surface. If that is what is seen, that would be a good place to start. Those babies dont want to be exposed to the air for very long. And the 3 photos in the 2nd post show water droplets on the leaves. Also can be a problem.
If you are simply watering on a schedule instead of when the soil is dry, you may have soil that is drowning the roots. An easy way that you can monitor the moisture levels in your pots is to insert a bamboo stick or chopstick into the soil and leave it there. Pull it out every day and see if the stick is dry. If not dry, dont water the tree that day.

Is that water or is that honeydew from mealybugs/aphids/scale?

 

[lordy]

Is that water or is that honeydew from mealybugs/aphids/scale?

One shot shows what appears to be wet slats of the bench. If it IS from insects, there is a real problem.

 

[GarlR]

One shot shows what appears to be wet slats of the bench. If it IS from insects, there is a real problem.

The reason I say that is because it seems one part of it has a lot of water or honeydew, and the leaves right next to it (another plant?) has nothing on it. (The pic is the 2nd post, with the 2nd picture)

The leaves on the bottom left hand corner has nothing on them.

Also, it looks all of them are deciduous? If you wintered it them in a heated box, it hurts them because they need that rest period and to lose their leaves. At least the trident and japanese plum need this.

I'd recommend getting a humidity and temperature monitor. You can buy a decent one for $10-$15 at Walmart.

I can't find the heat zone for Quebec, but trident maples can only thrive in zones 5-8. The top portion of the US is zones 1-2. You probably do not live in a zone that is great for your trees, which is probably why your using a greenhouse and a heater. If you don't have the right humidity, temperature, and air flow, you can run into issues. Also you shouldn't regularly water. You only water when it needs it.

So basically check for:
1. If it is not water, then you have serious issues with scale, aphid, and/or mealybugs.
2. Get a humidity/temp monitor and see what is going on.
3. Ensure adequate air flow.
4. Make sure your watering it correctly. Use chopstick method. Get a wooden chopstick and place it in the soil. When it is almost dry, water until water comes out the drainage holes.
5. With ABOVE, make sure your soil isn't too compact and staying too wet. Wet roots leads to root rot and death of your bonsai.
6. Are you using a fertilizer? Make sure you do!


Lastly, when my bonsai gets in a little trouble, I use Superthrive. It isn't a fertilizer, but it has vitamins and minerals and all the goodies that plants can use. It seems to help my plants.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

From those photos, I don't see anything specifically concerning...looks pretty much like how new growth emerges. Keep an eye on soil moisture, and an eye out for any bugs. The heater might dry the leaves a bit if a fan is blowing on them.

Your trees are ahead of mine of the same species here, which remain outdoors all year in Birmingham. Since yours are in a greenhouse, and likely to remain in that greenhouse for another 4-5 weeks(?) be sure they're getting enough light.

 

[chris38383838]

Ok! Thanks everyone for the input! I definitely think it was too much water... when I lifted the pot yesterday some water came out of it, so I think the water just sat there and stayed stagnant. Maybe the roots lacked a bit of air and that's why the leaves turned curly. It was cloudy here this week so I think the soil just didn't have time to dry between waterings.

Lordy, thanks for the bamboo tip, I'll be sure to use it! Great simple idea to keep track of each bonsai, + I have a ton of those sticks and I don't know what to do with them!

Garl, I forgot to mention that since the air is dry, i vaporize my bonsais, so what you see is water droplets. I'm not sure if it can help, but I told myself that it can't hurt. I checked for insects but didn't find nothing that looked like scale or aphids. For the fertilizer, I use biogold, it's some pure rocket fuel for bonsai! They use it in nurseries in japan, and my bonsai do more than well with it.

Brian, my trees will stay in the greenhouse till half may, since here we can get some late frosts till that time. The trees outside won't open their leaves till that period also, so I can get plenty of light for my trees in the greenhouse. I oriented the greenhouse southward to get all the light I can get.

Thanks everyone!

 

[fourteener]

Take this for what it's worth...

I was told once that curling leaves can be a result of too much salinity in your pot soil. That as the water moves through your leaves to the tips, the exit pore gets clogged with salt and causes the curl. The cure is to get a lot of fresh water flushed through your pot.

If anyone can confirm such a thing that would be nice. Not sure if that is an ole story or scientific truth.

My Trident did the same thing last spring. The new leaves weren't as bad as the first crop. I'm repotting the whole thing this spring, hopefully things will be different.

 

[Austin]

I have only grown trees for 4 months indoors soo, this is just my opinion from what I've seen over this short period.

I had something similar to this happen / happening, I found I had under fertilized and over watered, and the humidity was too low, I cannot pinpoint hte exact problem as I changed my fertilizer regimine to 1/4 strength every watering and added a humidifier (that I've only had to run once a month to keep at a steady 40% indoors) and re potted everything into a better mix that wasn't a full grown tree in full summer growth stage.

I after changing all of these had the plants perk up, the redness from leaves gone away (thats a lack of one of the three major nutrients) yellowing stopped, and I only water hte plants every other day or every 3 days.

I have a trident maple seedling whos leaves look remarkably like the one you pictured, I drownd three others on accident, thinking they needed water when it was the opposite.

If I feel a plant needs some water,and I know it was just watered I settle on misting rather than watering, I've noticed the plant will wilt a little if it NEEDs water wich is useually by the fourth day after watering regaurdless of what medium it's in, a lot of what I have is in fish tank rock chiken grit and lavarock, with a layer of Hydroton on the bottom (1/4 - 1/2 the bottom of hte pot) and some small peat chunks mixed in.

I think your main problem is not having leeched the salts from the soil, and watering soo often coupled with low humidity has done this to your plants, also I had some fungus once from constantly misting my plants at night, now I only mist the leaves of the plants when they appear very dry. I got rid of the fungus by mixing fungenal and water in my mister and misting the plants with that. (didn't take much fungal per treatment but took about a week of using the mix)

to leech my pots (wich helped a ton) I got a basin of water holds baout two gallons, filled it with store boaght reverse osmosis water, submerged the pots until they had soaked up all the water they could, then held them over a drain basin and watered them with fertilizer water, by the time they dryed out (2-3 days) the salts on the surface had been reduced by at least half. now I leech at least once a week and have seen very little to no salt accumulation in the pots.

anyone disagree with what I have done/said here?

but these steps discribed above helped me with deciduous trees indoors.

 

[Austin]

Take this for what it's worth...

I was told once that curling leaves can be a result of too much salinity in your pot soil. That as the water moves through your leaves to the tips, the exit pore gets clogged with salt and causes the curl. The cure is to get a lot of fresh water flushed through your pot.

If anyone can confirm such a thing that would be nice. Not sure if that is an ole story or scientific truth.

My Trident did the same thing last spring. The new leaves weren't as bad as the first crop. I'm repotting the whole thing this spring, hopefully things will be different.

it would seem that way to me as once I leeched the salts out and washed everything with RO water (wich still seems to add some salts for some reason) this problem whent away but only the new growth was affected the old growth leaves are still slowly dying off as they are getting replaced by new growth.

another note is I have used in my area rain water and it was terrible for my plants I think it has to do with all the cloud seeding and chemicals being poured in the air by planes, my mother uses it with her house plants and none of them do well, until watered with RO water with a few drops of fert. Ground water here also sucks too high in iron. But my other and I have been debating the effects of using rain water and ground water on plants for years in our location neither of us think it's any good for the plants.