Curly Top
Leaves thicken, roll upward and feel stiff and crisp, and the veins on the underside turn purple. The plant stops growing dead where it stands while its neighbours carry on. It is a virus with no cure, and it is a dry western problem, uncommon east of the Plains.
Disease checklist
Four things to look for. If most of them match what you are holding, you are in the right place.
What gets rid of it
Gentlest option first. For most backyard cases the first one is enough, so try these in order and stop as soon as it works. If you do spray something, the product label tells you how — please read the notice further down.
1Remove the plant
There is no cure. Pull infected plants so they are not a source for the leafhoppers.
Try this first2Shade the crop
The beet leafhopper prefers hot, open, exposed plants, so closer spacing and shade cloth make a planting less attractive.
30 percent shade cloth garden3Reflective mulch at planting
Silver mulch laid at planting deters the leafhopper from landing.
silver reflective mulch garden4Clear weedy ground nearby
The leafhopper builds up on weedy dry ground and moves into gardens when that ground dries out.
5Do not spray for it
The leafhopper transmits the virus in about a minute of feeding, so insecticide cannot get ahead of it.
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Which plants get curly top
Every plant we cover that gets curly top, grouped by type — tap any one to open its page. A note beside a plant came from that plant’s own entry, because the same disease can be a minor nuisance on one plant and a serious problem on another. Plenty of plants we do not cover get it too.
Plant families hit hardest
Related plants often share the same problems, so if one plant in a family has it, check the others. The largest group here is Amaranthaceae, with 3 of the 6 affected plants.
- Amaranthaceae3 plants
- Solanaceae3 plants
When to treat
Rule out herbicide drift and root damage first, because in the Midwest those are far more likely than curly top and they look similar.
Timing only — the label is the law
This page tells you when to watch for curly top and when treating is worth considering. It is not a recommendation to apply any particular product. Read and follow the product label before you spray — under federal law the label is the legal instruction, and using a pesticide against it is illegal.
- Check the pre-harvest interval. Every product that’s cleared for an edible crop sets a minimum number of days between spraying and picking. Find it on the label before you spray anything you intend to eat.
- Check the re-entry interval before you or anyone else works in the treated area again, and use the protective equipment the label names.
- Confirm the product is registered for your crop in your state. This page groups many different crops together, and a product legal on one of them is not legal on all of them — state registrations differ too. Your state pesticide agency or local extension office can confirm both.
- Rates and mixing instructions come from the label, never from us. We don’t publish them because they differ by product and formulation.
Other problems on the same plants
If a plant gets curly top, these are the problems it most often gets as well, so they are worth checking for while you are out there. They tend to appear together; one does not cause another.