Knowledgebase
Redbud under attack #753985
Asked June 04, 2021, 1:06 PM EDT
Harford County Maryland
Expert Response
The orange-brown spots in the third photo look like environmental damage and are likely due to old cold damage (when we had those late-season cold snaps) or perhaps minor drought stress. For part of this spring, many areas were quite dry. The rest of the leaf is healthy and contributing to photosynthesis, so you can leave them be. If any are particular eyesores, you can individually clip them off. It does not look like a typical Redbud fungal disease, but even so, fungicide spraying at this point will not be effective or needed.
The other damage is difficult to asses as the photos are too small and not in focus, but it appears to be due to one or more types of leaf-feeding caterpillar or other insect. As native trees, Redbuds are beneficial in supporting several species of insect, which in turn are fed-upon by songbirds. Leafminers are insects that "mine" (eat) leaf tissue between the upper and lower surfaces of the leaf, which is why the remains of their mines are tissue-thin and missing green chlorophyll. Healthy trees grow extra leaves each year since some are damaged or lost to pests, storms, and so on, so they can afford to have some of this type of damage and not be harmed.
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/leafminers-trees-and-shrubs
If you see a cluster of caterpillars instead, they may be one of the species that feeds on an array of different tree species and tends to form communal nests out of silk. When very young, most cannot chew through the entire leaf layer, so their feeding only scrapes-off one side, similar in appearance to leafminer damage. As they get older, they can chew entire leaves. Birds and other predators still hunt and eat them, but sometimes their feeding causes more drastic damage because they're living in groups and therefore eat leaves faster than a lone individual could. These you can remove by clipping off the leaves they're spinning silk around. If there are too many to remove or if the tree is too large to reach, you can consider having an organic pesticide applied by a professional, though pesticide use should be an approach of last resort. Active ingredients like spinosad or the B.t. mentioned at the bottom of this page can provide targeted control with limited impact on other insects and wildlife: https://extension.umd.edu/resource/caterpillars-trees
Miri