Looks like it to me! NEEM!

Yep

Neem may help break the life cycle - it interferes with adults laying eggs

Neem has not done much for me and i avoid it because it kills the good guys too. With CLM season just getting started now, my citrus has already been heavily dosed with Imidacloprid systemic. But that alone has not delivered the complete solution. I have found that hanging yellow sticky traps all over + spraying HO + then HO - Bt, weekly once any infestation is found helps. With 40+ trees in the ground i find it difficult to get to all the leaf undersides to coat the eggs, but i try. With all that effort, i have been able to limit CLM to a few branches of lemon here and there over the last 3 years. Its a constant fight - good luck!

The damage is not from leaf miners, as I don't see the trails.. I do see a lot of crinkled leaves,, and these crinkled leaves are only on the new growth produced by the last flush. The damage you see happened way back when the flush begun, It was caused by insects, most likely thrips, feeding on the new tender growth. Fresh new citrus growth is a delicious banquet to insects. Insects sucking out the juices from the leaves, caused the damage. To avoid this from happening, spray the new growth with horticultural oil every several days, or even a firm water spray daily until the new growth firms up. Doing so kills or dislodges the insects. This type of damage is more or less common.

The trails are there on a few leaves, but not all. The pests that lay the leaf miner eggs are attracted to new growth, so stop pruning. If the leaves are green they are still making food for the tree, even if they are not perfect. If you eventually need to do some trimming, wait until the fall when the leaf miners are not active. Do you live in an area where HLB is an issue? Los Angleles, Riverside, and Orange counties. Don't spray anything on the tree, even neem oil, when the temperature is in the 90's or hotter.

https://ucanr.edu/sites/ACP/Homeowner_Options/

All, Wow. THANK YOU! I thought I would receive email replies, but must have my settings set so I won't, so I'm sorry I'm not replying til now. OK, I will:

- stop removing damaged leaves

- not spray anything if temps are in 90's (I am in Orange County, so far it has not been a hot summer here)

- start with NEEM, and water sprays every few days and see how it goes.

It makes sense that they like new growth bc this tree had a ton of that all at once. I'm sure they were like..."FEAST!"

Thank you all SO MUCH. Like I said, I really love this resource :)

igteacher-, I looked again at Vicki's photos carefully, and still did not see leaf miner trails. I did see darkened dead areas in a few leaves, but those certainly are not LM trails.

Silica: are you looking at all three pics? The first and third pic clearly display CLM trails. The second pic displays damage from CLM... but they had left long ago; the residual damages areas and "crinkle" are typical of what i see on my CMD damaged trees.

Keep in mind that with a small tree, you can manually squeeze these little buggers to death. It takes some dexterity and patience, but can be done... and a lot less hassle than mixing up a batch of spray.

Molewacker after reading your post I once again examined the first picture, and did see CLM trails, but the CLM leaves were very few and as far as I can see does not represent the amount of damage due to the tree. Thanks for pointing out the CLM, I appreciate it.

Silica, there are trails everywhere on the leaves! I probably didn't get the best pics, but oy! They are there! Sticky, too. Molewacker, what am I looking to manually squeeze? I have seen small little caterpillar type bugs and I always squish them but I don't every find many. Are the leaf miners flying insects? Maybe I will also get those yellow sticky cards and hang them on the tree.

CLM are the caterpillars that develop into small moths. Squish / squeeze all that you can find. Look carefully with a magnifying glass at the tiny new leaves and be gentle with those tiny leaves. These efforts will be worth it... although not that much fun.

I suggest entering a calendar reminder to check for them... and especially one weeks before this time of the year - next year - to give the tree a careful inspection.

Good luck and give us an update with nice pics... we love pics here on this forum!!!

OK!!! I will and thank you so much again!

There is extensive damage to the citrus shoots beyond the serpentine frass lines. You can see where in its last stages the larva have emerged from the mine and moved to the edge of the leaves. It rolls the leaf around itself and pupates in preparation for adulthood, creating a rolled and distorted leaf.

http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74137.html

https://cals.arizona.edu/crops/citrus/insects/leafminer.html

The delta pheromone traps are for coding. The very nature of the mines makes it hard for some insecticide to work. As others have said you have to combine strategies for best results.

What you are squishing are the pupa. See 3rd photograph in UC bulletin.

The four stages of CLM.

A stock photo of damage done by CLM to new shoots.

how about some insecticidal soap

insecticidal soap does not get to the larvae inside the leaf.

It was just a suggestion

Gotcha. It’s important to understand the complete lifecycle of a pest to treat the immediate need plus the future stages.

Good point hibiscus909. Too many treat once and this kills one stage but they need to treat each stage to have an effective solution.

I tried systemic Bio Advance for fruits/veg..works great in spring but now Its not. Even I applied again but failed. Then I put delta traps form this >>> https://iscatechnologies.com/search?type=product&q=citrus+leafminer >>> catch to many of CLM. But the problem is still going on. Tried even Neem oil >>>No result. Now my planning is to use spinosad .

remove the infected leaves then put some insecticidal soap to protect it from further damage

but I'm no expert

I've been using neem oil to successfully combat CLM for several years now. The trick is to spray with neem oil just -say 2-3 weeks- before the bugs show up. In my area I spray around the middle of June and repeat -just to be on the safe side- a couple of times during the summer.