Leaf curl

[brettjm]

I surfed through a bunch of leaf curl threads this morning, I couldn't decide what my problem actually was. I'm worried about my LSU purple right now, and its severe leaf curl. Can't do pics right now, but I can describe it well enough. Big healthy plant (5th year) in a huge (~100-150 lb with potting mix) pot. It has been leafing out the past few weeks, but the leaves started to curl 3-4 days ago. I watered it 2 days ago (for first time in a week), and it got worse. The rain last night exacerbated the problem even more, and the leaves are majorly curled, and slightly (though not drastically) limp...was like that this morning as well, so its not like its a 'heat of the day' type of phenomenon. It has shown FMV in previous years, but no visible symptoms this year.

I feel like 2 options could be the culprit.
1) Overwatering, and killed a bunch of roots. To be fair, I've never overwatered this guy before...so I dunno how I'd do it now.

2) Roots just can't support all the fresh growth. Its only been leafing out for a few weeks, and it already has 1.5-2 fold more foliage on it this year compared to last. HUGE leaves compared to last year. And its all really fresh, so not the best at retaining water. Is it possible that the tree is just struggling to keep up right now? I feel like the fact that it didn't get better overnight (when it was cool and damp) suggests this isn't the case.

I know pics make all the difference, but any advice or thoughts you all have would be awesome.

[eboone]

Use magnification, look for mites

[cis4elk]

When was the last time you up-potted? Any chance of the "strangled root scenario"? Or one more thought..root grubs? These are bad situations, but sometimes that is how mind works. I start with the worst case and scenario and work backwards, then there are no surprises.

[Rewton]

I had something like this happen 3 years ago with one of my first large container figs. It was a wet spring and some of the leaves were drooping and falling off. Looking back, it probably had something to do with the rain washing out the fertilizer and/or lime. I didn't have a lot of experience with container media then. Finally, I gave up and planted this fig in the ground. It has done fine ever since.

[brettjm]

No sign of mites. It got up-potted last spring into a container that was 2-3x bigger than the old one, but the root mass definitely filled out that space (e.g....i can't dig into with my fingers because of so many roots). Its otherwise happy and healthy....2-3 inches of growth on every limb so far this year....and the problem JUST started 3-4 days ago.

[brettjm]

I'm really hoping its just a case of saturated potting mix. If that's the case, yeah there might be some leaf drop, but the bigger/stronger roots should survive and it should bounce back. It probably wouldn't kill me to add a few extra draining holes to the bottom, as there is only one currently...although that didn't seem to matter last year.

[brettjm]

Hmmm. Well. As quickly as its onset, its begun to get better. On a scale of 1 to 10 of looking stressed, this plant was a 2 on wednesday, a 5 yesterday, a 10 this morning and this afternoon, and is now maybe a 3. Never seen anything like it. Hopefully tomorrow morning it looks right as rain (except...you know...don't actually rain, considering I think it might have been too waterlogged...). Maybe its just a diva.

[Claymango]

Brett I planted my Excel 2 weeks ago from a 5 gallon...it had jsut broke dormancy too...Leaves began to curl and drop, buds that were breaking turned brownish and dried out, some even pushed out dry dead whatever thingies.... I doubt I over watered or under watered, soil was moist at one point, but we did have a freak Heatwave a day or 2 after I planted in the 90's....maybe that shocked the plant...Ether way i watered super hard, which was probably a bad idea and now I'm just waiting.