I have discovered a glazed coating with tiny orange worms on the new leaves of my lemon tree, any ideas?

Question

I have discovered a glazed coating with tiny orange worms on the new leaves of my lemon tree, any ideas?

Answer 1

You've got leaf miners.  It's not a coating.  It MAY look that way, but what the worm is doing is separating one part of the leaf from another and eating what's in between these two layers.  They got into my potted pommelo plants, and all you can do is kill them leaf-by-leaf.  If you don't, you will have MORE bugs laying MORE eggs.

The parents are easy to kill by hand if you can find them.  They're slower than house flies.  So, you CAN get them if you're fast enough.  

You CAN try contacting someone from a local big box store who WORKS in the garden center and ask him/her what the store does to keep the leaf miners at bay.  Since they have to keep their plants looking as good as possible, they MUST do something to TREAT their trees to keep them looking as good as possible.  Learn what they use and then tell me!  *laughter*

At the end of this cycle, usually, the worm will roll up an edge of the leaf and go dormant for a while.  This may be the LAST stage before it becomes a flying insect.

Usually, the miners pursue the youngest of the leaves.  After a certain age, the leaves appear to become LESS appealing to the miners for SOME reason.  IF they get hungry, and pickings are slim you MAY see them trying to consume older leaves, but who knows?