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Crab Apple Tree Diseased…?

NoDigNancy40NoDigNancy40 Posts: 3
edited May 2023 in Problem solving
Hi, I bought a 6 ft crab apple tree a month ago but haven’t planted it yet due to the wet weather (very heavy clay area) but have noticed, now the blossom has finished, quite a few black curled leaves and worried it might be fire blight. Can anyone recognise this from the attached photos (sorry they’re lop-sided!). I’m wondering whether it’s best to completely get rid of the tree just incase because I have quite a few other ‘susceptible’ trees i.e. hawthorn, apples and pears, all of which seem ok, for now. Any ideas would be welcome as I’m not 100% sure what it is. Thank you.


Posts

  • CeresCeres Posts: 2,698
    Hi and welcome to the forum.
    It's difficult to diagnose the problem from the photos. https://www.rhs.org.uk/disease/fireblight This gives you a checklist to see if the symptoms correspond to fireblight. Another possibility is frost damage if you have had very cold weather recently......I know it's May but I'm shivering in a fleece as I type this so we are still in the meteoroligical  danger zone.
    Did you buy the tree locally or was it a mail order purchase?
  • NoDigNancy40NoDigNancy40 Posts: 3
    Thanks for your reply, Ceres. I bought the tree from a reputable garden centre nearby which I’ve purchased plants and a couple of trees from in the past so I feel quite confident in them. You maybe right about the frost damage as we’ve had a few pretty hard frosts so I’m wondering if I should prune the affected leaves and blossom and keep an eye on it? I’m just very worried about my other trees. 
  • NoDigNancy40NoDigNancy40 Posts: 3
    And thanks for the link. I’ll also try the bark-scraping test.
  • CH1973CH1973 Posts: 73
    My Katsura has similar looking leaves. Black and curled. Frost nipped them 🙂
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