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Apple and Pear tree dicease
Sal Hall
Posts: 32
Hi all,
Wonder if you can help me, I have both apple and pear trees with diseases, they have brown spots all over the leaves, the leaves are tightly curled, there are pale spot on the bark, the leaves are brown and black in colour.
Is there any way I can post pictures on here as that would be the easiest way to show what is wrong?
Any help appreciated:)
0
Posts
Bit difficult to see, but the leaves look as if they have Scab which is a fungal infection. Bad this year for some reason. Collect up and destroy the leaves rather than leaving them on the garden. Make sure there is a good through draught between the branches.
Curled up leaves is usually a sign of aphids. Unroll a leaf and look. Use a Winter Wash to clear them from overwintering on the bark.
Cannot really see the 'pale dots' If they look like cotton wool then it could be so called American blight which is a woolly aphid.
Last edited: 13 November 2016 12:02:33
I agree and certainly it looks as though the aphids got a good hold, the way the leaves are curled like that. However, the good news is that winter's coming and all those horrible leaves and the aphids with them will fall away. As said above, good hygiene is important to prevent re-infestation from overwintering pests. You could do a winter wash to clean off all the stems, but I prefer to let nature take its natural cold course. Next spring, as leaves unfurl, keep on top of the hygiene, removing infected leaves if and when they appear and watch out for aphids in the new growth. Keep trees well fed (and watered in dry spells) and that will ensure they are strong and healthy enough to withstand fungal attack.
H-C
The Winter wash I use is a natural insecticide made from plants. It kills off overwintering aphids and their eggs without damaging anything else. Only trouble with it for us, is that it needs to be sprayed in winter and then again in March, on a windless day. We never have windless days here!
One further point, you may have not noticed, but I'll bet that there was a stream of ants going up the trees to those curled leaves. Might be worth putting a grease band around the trunk to stop them. They farm the aphids for their honeydew. Sooty mould grows on the honeydew they miss.
Last edited: 13 November 2016 13:49:25
Hi there, thank you very much for all the advice. The trees were sprayed with Provado fruit and veg treatment through the summer and I didn't particularly find a heavy Infestation, I looked for ants but didn't find those either which I know is odd. The trees are planted in gravel on top of lining, in a long line attached to an open wire system so they don't have any leaf collection underneath them, its all blown away or collected by us, the only thing I didn't do was remove the leaves as they turned brown which may of helped. The trees are espalier so they have air around them all the time and for want of a better description sit in the middle of a field, they're basically a feature to split the two halves of the large garden up. They didn't produce flowers or fruit either this year and the pear tree lost both its bottom limbs, they just died off, the trees are 3 years old and did have fruit last year, quite a heavy crop so that's also concerning?
I would be a little wary of using that insecticide. The active ingredient is reported to be toxic to bees and even in small doses can cause them problems.
This year has been very bad for Scab (and Pear rust). Our trees which like yours are in an open situation have suffered quite badly. We got no usable fruit from Rev. Wilkes and only a few clean ones from Greensleeves. Not an easy problem to control as there are not sprays fro the amateur. We used to use Copper sulphate, but that is no longer available (except perhaps from Wine making outlets).