is something eating these pawpaw leaves?

9 years ago

I had sun damage to the leaves in early spring and that looked different. Then I thought this was from hail maybe? It hasnt gotten much worse in the last four weeks, but maybe a little worse.

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dokd

8 years ago

Thanks olreader (5b), that's good to know. Ours were potted too, and planted this spring. They were sad looking twigs for quite a while. Thankfully we finally got full and mature leaves on them in the past month, but then *bam* with the leaf damage. Looks just like your picture from last year. I was really concerned whether it would kill our trees or not, and based on your experience I have more hope for ours. Thanks again.

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Comments (10)

pharmachad
9 years ago
June bugs!
garymc
9 years ago
Yes
gator_rider2
9 years ago
Bees are harvesting leaf material to make paper for nest this harvesting never damages a plant.
rina_Ontario,Canada 5a
9 years ago
Leaf-cutter bees...as gator_rider suggested
greendumb
9 years ago
Definitely leaf cutters
olreader
Original Author
9 years ago
Thank you. I see on Wikipedia that they are good pollinators so maybe they are a good thing.
dokd
8 years ago
We are having the same bee problem this summer with our pawpaw saplings. I'm curious, how well did your trees recover from the leaf damage? Did they come back healthy again this season?
copingwithclay
8 years ago
If you were to buy a short roll of 3 ft. wide aluminum window screen you could form a cylinder shaped barrier by stapling the top and bottom where it overlaps a few inches. A second flat pc. can sit on top as a 'roof' with a light weight stick/board on top to hold it down. I am using one like this to protect a pot of new seedlings from leaf eaters and bright sunlight. At night you could check a couple hours after dark to see if any of those round holes are being made by June bugs. Regardless of which eaters are doing the eating, the screen house will send them elsewhere to get their tummies filled up.
olreader
Original Author
8 years ago
I bought my pawpaws as potted plants last year so they already had big leaves in mid May. This year, they were one of the last trees to leaf out, and the bees did the same thing to out trees like my young redbud.

The trees seemed to suffer no harm from the holes last year, and one of them made it through the winter just fine. I thought the one in this picture was a goner but it just started to push out leaves on one branch around June 10 and I think it will be fine too.