You don't give your location but from your zone I would guess so-cal. A call to your local county extension office should get your answer. Al

It sounds like it could be a shot-hole disease, bacterial spot for example. Its not grasshoppers I don't think.

Scott

thinking S is completely correct. Damp Springs often do this to plum and many other trees. Are the holes rust colored around the edges of the holes?

Nope, the holes are clean cut with no defined border. Looks like something is eating them. Yes, I am in Southern California, 9 miles from the coast.

This post was edited by ahajmano on Wed, Mar 20, 13 at 15:21

well, its definitely something eating the leaves. I am finding new damage today that I am 100% sure was not there the day before. The leaf was healthy.

How do you control "chomping" insects like grasshoppers?

chomp back?

They're edible, in fact quite tasty boiled with sugar and soy sauce.

Unfortunately, I have no tips on how to catch them. My wife's grandmother used to catch them on the way to and from school as a child in Japan (nearly 100 years ago) and she would sell them.

ahajmano, diseases also "grow" new damage over time, so the fact that there is more damage means nothing.

Grasshoppers eat leaves from the outside, they don't make holes. The only bugs that I know of that make holes in the middle of leaves are various kinds of beetles, e.g. Japanese beetles. Some kinds of beetles feed at night only so you may not be seeing them. But, I strongly expect that what you have is a shot-hole disease and not a bug.

Scott

Thanks Scott. I will take a picture this afternoon.

Some pics

ahajmano, that's Shothole Disease. We get it about this time of year. Comes with our "May Gray"/"June Gloom", which is ahead of schedule this year. I am watching for it on my trees. Fortunately, I'm just enough inland that I'm missing a lot of the fog and overcast, and if it does manage to creep up to me, it burns off in the later morning. Here's a link to some info about Shothole Disease. We deal with this and Peach Leaf Curl due to our particular climate, humidity and moderate temps. Way too early for grasshoppers, and they will decimate a leaf from the outside in. They don't leave little tiny holes :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: UC IPM: Shothole Disease

Another

This doesn't look like shot hole,.. as you said, something eating it out.

Upper pix look like shot-hole, lower could be shot-hole or bug. In either case the damage looks pretty minimal and I wouldn't worry until it gets a lot worse.

Scott

One more...

I actually found two fairly large grasshoppers the other day. They were almost two inches long and brown in color.

I also have a lot of leaf damage from the outside in. I will take a photo.

How do you control them?

I am still in agreement with Scott, here. But, you can look through this page to see if anything might be a fit.

Patty S.

Here is a link that might be useful: UC IPM: Plum Pests

Some damage from the outside in on a cherry

See above

Some years I have a bit of a leaf issue on pluot in the greenhouse. I've thought in the past it might be a spray issue. But the tree pictured hasn't been sprayed except with Zinc chelate. I don't think that's the problem since the leaf issue is always isolated and all the pluots were sprayed the same. No rain so disease is unlikely.

In any case it's not enough to even cost me one piece of fruit.

{{gwi:67774}}

As I wrote in the California forum, I have a katydid infestation amongst my fruit trees, and it looks something like that. It is not shothole, because I have also had shothole in my apricots and it looks different, plus the katydids jump off these leaves! My plums get it the worst. It never seems to slow my trees down, though.

Here is a photo.

Carla in Sac

Thanks for all your responses friends. I'm going to put a birdbath in to increase the beneficials ad birds to take out the leaf hoppers/grasshoppers (if there are any).

If it is shothole, not much I can do about it.

Thanks again!

SOLVED. It was a massive earwig infestation.

ahajmano: what did you do to combat the massive earwig infestation? I think I might have the same problem with the plum and pluot trees I recently planted.