Why twists the tops of a blackcurrant. We identify and eliminate currant diseases

Currant bushes give tasty and healthy berries. Sometimes gardeners face various difficulties when growing this plant. What to do if currant leaves curl ? The bush needs help, which depends on the cause of such a problem.

Pests

Fungal infections often cause red and black currants to curl their leaves. Anthracnose is a common disease of berry crops. Its characteristic signs are twisting and reddening of the foliage. First, purple spots appear on young shoots. Over time, they turn red, and the bark becomes gray with a purple border. The shrub grows worse and bears fruit. From powdery mildew, leaves, shoots, plant trunk, which eventually acquires a gray-brown hue. Bushes weaken, grow worse. Branches may be bent. The foliage first curls and then may fall off. In case of powdery mildew, the bushes are sprayed with Topaz or a weak solution of urea. The procedure is repeated in the evening, twice, with an interval of about 7-10 days.

Fungal diseases often appear on plants with improper care or adverse weather conditions. The spores of the fungus overwinter in the ground, and in the spring they begin to become more active. Powdery mildew can develop with a lack of sunlight, an excess of fertilizers, or with poor soil aeration. Anthracnose is activated by high humidity combined with high temperature.

To prevent diseases at the end of the growing season, all plant residues on the berry fields are removed and burned, and the ground is dug up on the site. They do not allow an excess of nitrogen fertilizers in the soil, carry out weed control and loosening in a timely manner, do not thicken the berries and use stable and healthy seedlings for planting. To protect against various kinds of fungi, they are treated with a 1% solution of Bordeaux mixture twice. The first time - during bud break, again - before flowering currants.

The problem sometimes occurs with viral diseases. For example, the leaves of black currant curl with the development of terry (red varieties are less susceptible to this disease). It leads to deformation and stretching of the foliage, the berries become smaller. You can slow down the development of the disease if you cut and destroy the damaged branches.

Currant leaf curl is an unpleasant symptom that requires urgent intervention. With timely assistance, the plant will remain healthy and delight with a high yield of vitamin berries.

Twisted currant leaves were once commonplace in my garden. Deciding to figure out the cause and eliminate it, I improved the health of the bushes and significantly increased the yield.

Twisting leaves on currant bushes is a symptom of damage by various diseases or pests of plants. Having noticed it, you need to look for additional symptoms that will accurately indicate the source of the trouble.

spider mite

The smallest insect - the spider mite - settles on cultivated plants and weeds. Braiding the underside of the leaf with a thin cobweb, he arranges for himself a comfortable home and feeds on the sap of the plant, depriving the bush of nutrients and moisture.

The first signs of the appearance of a pest are small dark dots on the leaves, later the plates curl and dry.

In the summer heat, they pass this stage in a matter of days. Ticks get on plants, leaving wintering places - fallen leaves. If you do not fight with uninvited guests, the plant weakens, is more often affected by diseases, and hard to endure winter.

currant glass jar

The pest is a butterfly that looks like a wasp. She has small, transparent wings, and a body in transverse dark and light stripes. One to two weeks after the completion of the flowering of the currant, the glass case is ready to lay eggs. The insect arranges masonry at a height of about 45 cm from the ground, placing 40-60 eggs in cracks in the bark.

Currant leaf midge

Gall midges are small flies that damage plants. There are several types. After laying eggs in the upper part of the shoots of the bush, the gall midge infects the plant. The larvae feed on the juice of young leaves, causing the tops of the shoots to curl and dry out.

Currant gall midge

This type of gall midge arranges masonry at the bottom of the shoots. Penetrating into the cracks, feeding on the juice of the plant, the pests contribute to the drying and death of the shoots. Their colonies can be found in shaded and damp parts of the garden.

leaf gall aphid

How to deal with pests

• regularly inspect, cut dry and weak trunks; cut parts of the bushes, fallen leaves should be burned or removed from the site; the soil around the bushes must be dug up.
• if a spider mite appears on the leaves, it is necessary to treat the plants with acaricides - Neoron, Sonmayt;
• against aphids and gall midges, insecticide treatment before flowering helps. For example, Iskra, Kemofos.

Currant diseases

• Sferoteka (American powdery mildew) - already at the end of spring, a whitish coating appears on the leaves, the shoots turn brown, the berries become small and unsweetened. If the plant is not treated, it may die. To save the bush, the affected shoots must be cut off and treated with a fungicide. Examples of drugs - Topaz, Fundazol. As a preventive measure, thinning bushes, dusting with wood ash is suitable.

• Septoria (white spotting) is a fungal disease that develops in conditions of high humidity and poor ventilation. In thickened, shaded plantings of currants, brown spots appear on the leaves, brown at the edges. Gradually, the leaf turns light brown and curls. Treatment: removal of diseased trunks, spraying with Bordeaux mixture. Prevention - regular pruning of bushes with thinning for ventilation and access to sunlight.
• Anthracnose is a fungal disease, its symptoms appear in the first summer weeks. Signs - the appearance of small reddish spots on the leaves. Over time, they increase, and the leaf plate in these places expands and swells. Treatment - spraying with a solution of the drug Alirin B. Prevention - removal of fallen leaves from the site, spring spraying with Bordeaux mixture.
• Rust is a disease in which brown spots form on the leaves, small at first, then they grow and merge, the leaf dries out, curls and falls off. To protect the plant from rust, during the period of bud break, it is necessary to treat the bushes with a solution of Bordeaux liquid 1%, another drug from the category of fungicides is also suitable. Repeated spraying should be carried out when buds are formed.
• Gray rot - a brown coating appears on the leaves. White currants are especially often affected by gray rot. The plant is treated with Trichodermin.

Currant is a tasty and very healthy berry. This plant is very common, as most varieties perfectly tolerate cold, heat, and drought. However, pests and diseases can cause much more significant harm to currants.

At the height of summer, when the berries are still ripe, leaves suddenly curl on the bushes. If the plant is not watered, you might think that the reason is a lack of moisture. However, the leaves roll up into a tube and are green and looking healthy. If such a leaf is expanded, you can see colored spots or a colony of larvae.

Curled leaves quickly lose their color, become dry and fall off. In this case, the plant can lose more than 50% of its green mass, which negatively affects the yield and weakens the currant in the future.

It is impossible to establish the cause of twisting of the leaves without a thorough examination. Symptoms of diseases that have this symptom are different. So, brown spots on the leaf blade indicate anthracnose or sferoteka, orange spots indicate columnar rust. Symptoms appear at different times, which also helps to identify the disease and take action.

Pests

Many insects feed on currant berries and tree sap. However, not all of them form such a symptom as folding the leaf plate. The “victim” is tender young leaves, as coarsened ones do not attract their attention. Read how to grow lettuce onions.

You can get rid of insect pests only by treating plants with insecticides during the breeding season or laying eggs.

shoot aphid

These are very small inactive insects of a greenish color. Aphids live in colonies on young foliage and shoots.

Aphids feed on sap, which causes the leaf plate with the colony to curl up into a ball.

Aphid breeding is almost always associated with ants. Insects secrete a sweet liquid - honeydew. The latter is consumed by ants, so they literally grow aphids: they protect them from other aphid eaters, like a ladybug, and, even worse, they transfer insects to young leaves. For the winter, ants transport the aphids to the anthill, and in the spring they return to the currant. Find out about planting and caring for the Aflaut bow.

If an anthill appears next to the currant bushes, you should immediately check the plant for aphids.

Shooting aphids prefer black currants, but they will not refuse red currants either.

leaf roller

The leaf roller is a small butterfly, 2 cm long, with dark wings lying flat on the back. The butterflies themselves are harmless, but their larvae willingly gnaw on the leaves. In the evening, the leafworm lays eggs on the inner surface of the leaf plate. The eggs are almost invisible, and the caterpillars do not differ in large size and are almost as dark as adult butterflies. Shakespeare will talk about growing winter onions.

Caterpillars form a kind of habitat from a leaf. The damaged leaf folds into a tube, in which the larva lives. Inside, such a “tube” is covered with cobwebs. The caterpillar lives in the leaf until autumn, and when it falls to the ground, it pupates and hibernates in it. In spring, a butterfly emerges from the chrysalis and lays eggs again.

As a rule, the leaf roller damages only individual leaves. The latter must be collected and burned.

1. If the butterflies have just appeared, you can prevent the laying of eggs. To do this, the currants are sprayed with a solution with the juice of onions, garlic, marigolds, and wormwood. The concentration is as high as possible: the stronger the smell, the more it will scare away the leafworm.
2. If there is a lot of damage, then the currants need to be sprayed with insecticides: avant, agravertin, inta-vir. Usually 1 treatment is enough to get rid of the leaflet for at least a year.

spider mite

An extremely small pest, invisible to the naked eye: the body length of the female is 0.2 mm, and the male is 0.24 mm. It is almost impossible to detect them, but you will have to see traces of activity.

The spider mite more often affects white and red currants, but does not ignore black currants either.

The first sign of a pest is small white dots that darken over time. There are more and more such spots until the entire leaf turns brown, dries out and falls off. In addition, cobwebs appear on the leaves and berries.

The spider mite reproduces at a gigantic rate. After 3 days, larvae appear from the laid eggs. The insect lives only 1 day, but manages to lay several hundred eggs per day.

1. You need to fight insects even before flowering. The spider mite is very afraid of high humidity. The bush is sprayed with water very abundantly, and then covered with a film. It is better to perform the procedure in hot weather so that the water evaporates actively. Remove damaged leaves before spraying.
2. The pungent odor also repels insects. Containers with ammonia or turpentine are placed around the plant and the currants are covered with a film for the night.
3. If the damage is great, then they resort to acaricides: samait, apollo, oberon. Kontos and Nissoran are also suitable - they are safer for humans, and a solution of colloidal sulfur. It is possible to process bushes only before flowering or during flowering. During the ripening of the berries, it is impossible to spray with insecticides.

Glassware

A small butterfly, black and red in color with almost transparent wings, for which it got its name. The butterfly feeds on flower pollen and lays its eggs on the bark of currants. Find out about ways to grow Troy onions at.

The glasswort extremely rarely lays eggs on healthy shoots and prefers damaged leaves and bark.

Caterpillars emerging from the egg gnaw through the branches and eat out the core. In this case, the leaves dry out and curl. The trouble is that damaged branches practically do not differ in appearance from healthy ones, although you can see that smaller berries are formed on them, and leaves do not grow. After the formation of the ovary, the branch begins to dry out and faster. The actual damage becomes noticeable only the following year.

• The glass case lays eggs for a long time, so only long-term complex preparations can protect against it. For example, a mixture of 20–30 glepidocide, 80–100 g of bitoxybacillin, 20 ml of fitoverm, dissolved in 10 liters of water. Kinmiks, kemifos, 0.1% funafon solution are also suitable.

Diseases

There are fungal diseases that can cause the leaf plate to curl. The symptom can appear both in early spring and in the middle of summer, as it is less dependent on the growing season.

Anthracnose

Fungal disease, carried by insects, and wind, and raindrops. Its first sign is small brown dots appearing on the leaf plate. Dots grow up to 3 mm, spread to petioles, young shoots and berries. By mid-June, the leaves curl up: the tips are bent up. The leaf dries up and falls off. Together with them, both young shoots and berries dry up, which significantly reduces the yield. He will tell about the benefits and harms of blue onions.

Folding and falling of leaves begins from the bottom of the shoot - this is a characteristic sign of anthracnose. The branch is gradually exposed, and the leaves remain only at the tops.

Anthracnose equally effectively affects black, red, and white currants, and other fruit bushes. As soon as its signs are found - on currants or on other bushes, it is necessary to immediately process the entire garden.

Sferoteka

American powdery mildew prefers blackcurrants, but is found on both red and white. A characteristic feature is a powdery whitish coating on leaves, berries, shoots. Over time, the plaque becomes brown, felt. Leaves under its action curl and fall off, berries and shoots dry up. Without treatment, the currant will die.

A loose whitish coating appears on the plant at the end of May. In early June, the fungus can already capture the entire bush. The fungus overwinters in the remaining leaves and affected shoots. On leaves sprinkled with earth, the fungus dies in frost.

Sferoteka develops especially rapidly in conditions of high humidity. In dry summers, disease outbreaks are much less common.

1. The best prevention and a necessary element of treatment is timely cleaning: dry leaves, and you must definitely collect and burn. The same should be done with diseased and dry branches. Careful pruning to lighten the bush also reduces the likelihood of disease.
2. For treatment, first of all, a solution of copper sulfate or any copper-containing preparations is used. The bushes and the soil under them should be cultivated in the spring before bud break. In addition, in early spring and autumn, after the leaves fall, you can spray currants with nitrafen. However, this drug is undesirable to use every year.
3. During the summer, plants are sprayed with a solution of soda ash or wood ash - a liter can for 3 liters of water. Potassium permanganate also helps.

columnar rust

Another fungal infection that gets its name from its distinctive appearance is irregular patches and growths that are rusty-brown in color. Over time, the growth turns into a cluster of yellow hairs visible in a magnifying glass - these are wintering fungal spores.

Spots appear on the inside of the leaf plate, around mid-June.

Under the action of the fungus, the leaves dry up, curl and fall off by mid-August. Until autumn, the bush is almost leafless, which greatly weakens the plants and reduces its chances of surviving the winter.

Potassium-phosphorus supplements, which are applied in the spring, before bud break, help fight the fungus.

1. The first remedy for columnar rust is Bordeaux mixture. The bushes are sprayed with the drug until the buds swell, then the procedure is repeated after 10–15 days. In rainy weather, the treatment is repeated again after 10–15 days, and in case of severe infection, it is repeated 4 times.
2. In autumn, it is recommended to carry out preventive treatment with a solution of karbofos.

goblet rust

It also prefers wet weather and high humidity. The manifestation of the disease is very characteristic: brown pustules or “pads” form on the leaves. When you click on this, it cracks and crumbles into a brown powder - these are mushroom spores.

The pustules increase in size until the fungus begins to curl and fall off the leaves. The bush loses foliage by the beginning of August, weakens and easily freezes out in winter. In addition, the disease affects young shoots, after which they also dry out.

Goblet rust is highly contagious, damaging all types of fruit bushes.

1. For treatment and prevention in spring, currants are sprayed with Bordeaux liquid. If the bushes are already sick, then spraying is repeated after 10-15 days.
2. With a strong infection, fungicides are used like previcur, topaz, phytosporin. Currants are treated with preparations before flowering, then when flower buds begin to burst, and after flowering is over. In case of severe infection, repeat the procedure 4 times after 10 days.
3. A good folk remedy against goblet rust is tobacco tincture - 200 g of tobacco dust per 2-3 liters of hot water. Such a solution is kept for 2-3 days, an infusion of garlic, a teaspoon of cayenne pepper are added and insisted for another day. Then the plants are sprayed.

Goblet columnar rust is associated with coniferous plants. If thuja, spruce, pine grows on the site, then they can become sources of infection.

Prevention measures

Both fungal diseases and damage caused by pests are easier to prevent than to treat. Moreover, all preventive measures relate to the usual rules for care:

Leaves of diseased currants should not be placed in a compost pit. In such an environment, the fungus overwinters well, and next year it will infect the shrub.

Video

Video about leaflet and pest control methods.

conclusions

1. Twisting and drying of the leaves is a consequence of both some fungal diseases and the vital activity of insects. To establish the cause of the phenomenon, you need to pay attention to secondary signs.
2. To get rid of insects (aphids), currants are sprayed with insecticides. Both chemical preparations and folk remedies are used.
3. Fungicides are used to treat fungal diseases that cause leaf curling - anthracnose, rust. The first remedy for such ailments are copper-containing drugs.
4. Diseases are easier to prevent: for this plant in the spring, before the buds swell, they are sprayed with Bordeaux liquid or a solution of copper sulfate.
5. An indispensable element of prevention is the timely cleaning and burning of leaves and diseased branches, as well as mulching and digging the earth.

Almost every garden in our country grows red, white or black currants. This is a very useful and tasty berry. But sometimes gardeners find that the currant leaves curl. What are the causes of this pathology? Let's figure it out together.

Why does currant curl its leaves? The answer is ambiguous. After all, such a state of the sheet plate can provoke a variety of reasons. This can be both pathogenic microflora and damage to the bush by pests. Consider the most common reasons why blackcurrant leaves curl.

Also, twisting of a leaf plate on a currant bush can be provoked by a glass case - a butterfly with small transparent wings. A characteristic feature of the insect is three yellow stripes on the abdomen. The departure of butterflies occurs 10-15 days after the flowering of the plant.

Currant glass-case lays about 50 eggs in the bark. Caterpillars emerge from them, which gnaw out the core of the branches. In the shoots, passages up to 40 cm are formed. As a result, the branches begin to dry out and wither, which provokes the folding of the leaves.

Currant leaf midge

Another reason for twisting the leaves is the defeat of currants by leaf gall midges. This is a small yellow-brown mosquito. The insect lays eggs on young leaves, as well as on the tops of the shoots. The deformation of the leaf plate occurs due to the vital activity of the larvae that have emerged from the eggs. Damaged leaves become "torn", gradually dry out and turn black. Further, the black sheet falls off. In affected plants, stem growth stops. They begin to branch in an uncharacteristic way.

Most often, seedlings and young plants suffer from leaf gall midge. During the season, the insect can give up to four generations. The larvae are found in groups in leaves that have not yet had time to unfold. As a result, they become twisted.

Currant gall midge

After hatching, the larvae live under the bark in colonies. They feed on the sap of the plant, causing the bark to acquire a brown hue. At the places of accumulation of larvae, cracks, spots and depressions are formed. As a result, the branches become brittle and quickly dry out. In this case, the leaves on the damaged shoots begin to curl and die. This leads to a decrease in the yield of the bush, and also slows down the rate of development of new shoots.

leaf gall aphid

Leaves can curl on the currant due to damage to the bush by gall leaf aphids.

Gooseberry shoot aphid

Also, currants suffer from the invasion of shoot gooseberry aphids. The larvae hatch during the period of bud swelling. Insects feed on leaves, causing them to twist and deform. After a while, they curl up into a ball.

Control methods and prevention

If the plantings were nevertheless affected by pests, they should be immediately sprayed with special means. Their choice depends on the type of insect that struck this berry crop. We found out for what reasons currant leaves curl. If you know the reasons, the fight against this pathology will be effective and will not affect the yield of the affected bush.

Video "Gall aphid on blackcurrant"

From this video you will learn how to deal with gall aphids on blackcurrant.

Currant leaves are an indicator of her health. A crown with green even leaves pleases the eye and creates confidence that the size and quality of the future crop will be excellent. But what to do if the leaves curl and dry out? Diagnose and treat immediately.

It is impossible to unambiguously indicate what the currant suffers from, because the twisting of the leaves may be evidence of a viral or fungal disease, a lesion by one of the many pests. A more careful examination of the plant will help to identify other, less noticeable symptoms, which can more accurately determine the problem.

Spider mite colonies grow rapidly. At a temperature of +15 degrees, insects pass the egg stage in 2 weeks, and at 30-degree heat in just 2-3 days. They hibernate in the upper layer of the earth and on fallen leaves. You can examine pests with a magnifying glass, females are only 1 mm in size, and males are 2 times smaller. They are most often painted in yellowish and orange colors. A plant affected by a spider mite is weakened due to a decrease in the area and intensity of photosynthesis, becomes susceptible to diseases and does not tolerate wintering well.

currant glass jar

This small butterfly with transparent wings, alternating dark and light stripes on the body, remotely resembles a wasp. It flies out 2 weeks after the flowering of the currant and lays 50-60 eggs in cracks in the bark at a height of 40-70 cm. After 10-15 days, caterpillars appear, penetrate into the trunks and make long, up to 50 cm moves in them, eating the core. That's where they winter. During its life, the caterpillar is able to damage several shoots, starting with young ones and moving on to more mature ones. Glass-resistant varieties of gooseberries and currants have not yet been bred.

Currant leaf midge

This is a small (about 1.5 mm) fly from the family of gall midges that appears during the period of mass flowering of black currant. For 2 days that make up the period of her life, she lays her eggs on young leaves at the top of the shoots. The hatched larvae eat the foliage, which causes the tops to curl and die. This pest is especially terrible for young plantings of currants.

Currant gall midge

Unlike the leaf gall midge, the shoot gall midge hides the masonry in the cracks in the bark in the basal part of the currant branches. The larvae, penetrating deep into the shoots, feed on the juice, which leads to drying and death of part of the branches. During the summer, 2-3 generations of these pests are born. Shaded places of growth with high humidity favor their development.

leaf gall aphid

Gooseberry shoot aphid

Gooseberry aphid larvae first suck the juice from the buds, then crawl onto the leaves and green shoots. The growth of damaged branches slows down, the internodes shorten, shapeless lumps of twisted leaves form at the tops. Inside them lives and multiplies aphids. Some females are born with wings, due to which these pests easily populate neighboring shrubs. In autumn, aphids lay their eggs on the bark at the base of the buds and hibernate until the following spring.

How to process currants

In order to combat the above pests, it is necessary to carry out timely pruning, removing all suspicious shoots. The remains of leaves and other organic matter in the spring must be carefully removed and burned. Trunk circles in late autumn must be dug up.

Usually, chemical treatment is carried out before flowering. The currant, on which the leaf is twisted, should later be treated with biological products or harmless folk remedies.

Video “Currant diseases”

From this video you will learn about currant diseases and how to treat them.