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What is wrong with these trees? Please help!

thelozbozthelozboz Posts: 1
in Fruit & veg
Hi everyone!  I’m new and I need your expertise!

I got an allotment in March, and inherited with it several fruit trees which seemed an attractive prospect at the time.  They had been left a long while unmanaged and uncared for since my plot had last belonged to someone, but I thought it could be worth seeing what happens with them.

However, fruiting time has arrived and there seems to be quite the list of problems with the trees.

Ive taken some photos and I hope that you could advise me on what you think the various ills could be and how I might go about rectifying, or if that’s even possible at this stage.

I have 2 types of plum tree, an apricot, apple, and a pear.

The plums seem worst off.  

The green gages have maggots in them and are rotting on the tree before they’re even ready to come off. I believe this is an insect issue (I haven’t had any moth or fly traps)

The purple ones (don’t know the species) are terrible though.  In every unripe cluster on the tree there’s one or two plums that are purple through what seems to be bruising rather than ripening, and they get these little fluffy lumps of fungus or mould on them.  As soon as one touches another, the other plum suffers the same fate.

i have been pulling off the bad ones to try to save unsullied ones.  



As you can see on these pics, this fluffy fungus is also present on the leaves.  I am worried silver leaf is also present but most of the diagnostic pics I have seen haven’t really offered anything decisive.

my Apricots are all presenting little black spots and again, the internal maggots.




Lastly, my pear tree has lots of black spotting on the leaves and although it doesn’t seem to be adversely effecting the fruit, I would like to find out what it is and if I can get rid of it for the health of the tree:



Anything you can tell me would be much appreciated and I would love to work on these problems and share progress with you!

thanks in advance,

Loz
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Posts

  • Guernsey Donkey2Guernsey Donkey2 Posts: 6,713
    Welcome to the forum @thelozboz and I hope you will find us a friendly lot who can share our gardening knowledge with you.  I am not a fruit tree expert, although regarding the first picture of the plums - I would say they are overcrowded and need thinning out to just two or three fruits per bunch and preferably not touching each other.  They need air to be able to circulate around each fruit.  You may be too late for this year, as the thinning ideally needs to be done when the fruits are small, before they develop into full size.  However before you get to that stage (say May/June 2020) you will need to feed and water the trees. I can assure you that once you master the care of your trees you will enjoy a bountiful crop of tasty fruit. Sorry I can't help you with the other trees except to say try to encourage as many insects and birds into your allotment as you can -these in turn will eat the aphids that you are seeing on the underside of the leaves.
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I think those close together are the ones the OP has picked off. 
    They all look a sorry state but I don’t grow fruit trees either. Such a shame when you wait all year for your fruit and these things happen. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • PalustrisPalustris Posts: 4,307
    Plums have Brown rot. Remove the affe3cted ones, and any off the ground and dispose of them. As said thin out so that there is air round them.
    Next image shows mildew. That is down to dryness, either at the roots or on the leaves. Not a lot you can do with mature trees except hope for better weather next year.
    The next problem is scale insect on the backs of the leaves. Again hard to deal with. You need to spray the tree with an insecticide based on horticultural soap. The scale are covered in wax so you need the soap to dissolve it so they desiccate.
    Not much up on Apricots.
    Finally the Pear is suffering from Scab which is the same kind of thing as Black Spot on Roses.  There are fungicides which you can use of fruit trees. Again remove and burn any affected leaves, even those which fall.
    Sorry, lot of work coming up for you.
    Finally, have a look out for the Hessayon book on Fruit tree growing.
  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    I agree with everything Palustris said.  I would look at improving the health of the trees by ensuring the ground beneath them is permanently free of grass and weeds.  Healthy trees can shrug-off things like scale and mildew.  Once ground is clear, wait until all the leaves have fallen and then rake-up and burn them.  Feed the ground with blood, fish & bone fertlizer then mulch it with a 4" layer of well-rotted farmyard manure.  At the same time, give the bare trees a treatment of 'fruit tree winter wash' which will reduce the numbers of overwintering pests.
    Brown rot often starts from 'mummified' fruit, which release spores in the following spring, so remove all dead friut remains from all of your trees in the winter.  It would also be worth putting 'grease bands' around the trunks to stop some of the pests which climb up from ground level.  If you fit them well, I find they also stop ants from 'farming' aphids.
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
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