My AGD foliage occasionally looks identical. I originally thought it was a mite infestation and treated it with Forbid. There was no change when new foliage emerged and the weird foliage never yellowed and dropped so I'm 90% sure it's not mites. Besides that I've never had Forbid not control an infestation.

Mine appears during times of stress so maybe it's a mosaic virus that lies dormant until something triggers it? I'm not even sure of that because it's never spread to nearby brugs and I've had it a few years. I wonder if Eddie has an answer? Like I said I believe the person I got my AGD from got theirs from Eddie too. I think I'll send them an email. I'll let you know what they say.

I have found that environmental changes can cause this as well..

Kylie...

Hi Jerry. some of mine have done this in years past are doing this also this year. It doesn't seem to carry over from year to year with mine so am thinking (hoping) it isn't an 'infectious' process. We had such extremely (for us) hot weather in July/Aug that I'm laying it off on letting the plants get too dry and maybe they lost their capacity to regain 'normal' leaf turgor afterwards. that said, some of the new leaves do the same thing now and I've been keeping them watered/fed.......dunno. Just hoping I get a blossom or so from these.
Will

Jerry, I also have several plants doing the same thing. Some have blossomed some not. The blossoms that I got from them weren't what they should have been and they all dropped lots of buds. Thankfully most of my plants haven't done this. I agree with Will. I don't think it is spreading. My Confusion is one of those doing this. I guess I am going to give it another try next year.
Jerry, we NEED some pictures of some of your Beauties. :-) They have been missed here.
Bill

Once when I had spider mites I sprayed my brug with an unusually-heavy dose of pyrethrin. This is EXACTLY what happened (except that, additionally, the baby leaves fell off), caused by the pyrethrin. It was not lasting damage.

I believe that it is caused by an external chemical preventing cell elongation. The chemical becomes more concentrated in the outer edges of the leaves because water flows in from the inside and evaporation keeps pushing it outward. Then, as the less-affected inner portions of the leaves continue to expand, the leaves "baloon" out from the central part, or curl backwards, like this.

Maybe it was inadvertently exposed to a tiny dose of round-up, or too much fertilizer, or some other substance. But my guess is that it's some sort of chemical.

I don't think that a chemical causes it in my plants as they develop this type of foliage after particularly stressful times such as extreme temps or a significant change in temp. Actually I am seeing the start of it again on one of my AGD as temps suddenly went from the upper 90's to the 60's. It looks like the new leaves are curling and becoming thickened and brittle. The only chemical control I use is Forbid or Fluromite and only after I see evidence of mites so the deformed foliage shows up prior to any miticide application. Brugs are also the only plants that I have that are treated with a miticide so it's not like it could be from an overspray from other plants.

Not this year but some years ago I had this happening in several Brugs and could find no insect cause. I too wondered if there had been a 'drift' of lawn care chemicals from the application on the neighbour's lawn that first year but when it happened again the next year on different Brugs and there was no lawn care, I put it down to the high doses of fertilizing I was doing and drastically changed that to next to no fertilizing and have had a great reduction in this sort of leaf contortions.
I too don't believe this to be an infectious process that spreads to other plants, rather something inherent or environmental.

A deficiency in certain micro-nutrients can cause foliage to be deformed. Often the damage may even resemble the damage caused by mites or a virus.

Fred

Hi Ruth Ann-
I did this same thing to my brugs when I over fertilized them. I sprayed them with Calcium, Bloom Boost and a fungicide. I stripped off those leaves and they were quickly replaced with healthy lush dark green leaves.

Why just the AGD???????? All the other Brugs are foliar fed and soil drenched with the same ORGANIC fertilizers. Nothing wrong with the AGD, they have buds, just a differant leaf structure. They are not sick. WEIRD. They get the best micro and macro nutrients available, humic acid, humus,soluble silicon, hydrolyzed fish calcium surgar cane extract and seaweed. These beauties get the BEST. I have no insect infestation with the Brugs, just aphids on my Datura's which I take care of with a homemade organic insectacidal spray. No harsh lawn chemicals by the neighbors either. Not temp change either. Just curious.
Jerry

Jerry, I have found that certain cultivars have different nutrient needs than others. I also have found that some cultivars are more sensitive than others and react adversely to certain fertilizer formulations.

You have to be careful applying micro-nutrients because plants only need very small quantities of them.

I started compiling data on fertilizer reactions a few years ago but my record keeping got off track following last year's freezes. For instance I would take a block of 500 seedlings growing in one gallon pots. This block represented about 20 unique crosses. All seedlings were growing in the same potting mix and all received the same exact dose of fertilizer. A week or two after applying the fertilizer I would see some crosses thriving while others would start producing distorted growth or would become chlorotic. The same held true with my stock plants.

The only way you can truly find out if your AGD has problems is to send a sample off to a local university or agricultural extension office for testing.

Some healthy cultivars just have ugly foliage no matter what you do. Those cultivars will slowly fade away as more robust cultivars are introduced. I use Cherub and a couple of other seedlings I have to try to introduce better growth and foliage properties into cultivars I like that have undesirable foliage.

Fred

My multi skirt yellows are the most affected by this type of foliage.

Although it may be only that misery loves company, this posting relieves my mind. I had a really bad mite infestation this summer that eventually I got cleared up with Forbid applications. On my other five brugs (I know I'm a piker compared to most of you all), the new leaves look normal, but on the AGD (that kasha77 was nice enough to trade me), the new leaves are still curled. I was feeling very frustrated because I really lusted after AGD and it is my first multi skirt, so why couldn't I keep it healthy? I guess now I don't feel like such an incompetent, if the problem isn't just me.