I was going to move this small plum tree to permanent location but I noticed a large crack on the trunk. It is Marianna 2624 rootstock with a couple of plum grafts. The crack is on the rootstock.
Should I just throw it away? If kept, is there a chance that it will infect other trees? Any recommendations will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Hard to tell for sure since the image isn’t in focus. Try taking another photo. If you’re using an iPhone, touch the screen where the trunk is in your photo, and that will force the lens to focus on the trunk and not the background. Reload. Try to take a good, close up photo of the crack.
Here is the other one.
If you click on the photo, you will be able to zoom in and zoom out. click the Escape button to escape. I did that and noticed a crack on the small branch.
It looks like a canker. Marianna is plum and is prone to canker.
My personal approach is to cut it out - cut out any brownish bark with a knife back to clean wood. I don’t see an active ooze on it so it doesn’t look particularly bad to me compared to some cankers.
I agree with Scott, I can see where there was some oozing in your photos, now. I would follow Scott’s recommendation, you may be able to save it.
I take a bbq grill lighter and burn it out. The tree looks really bad for a while, but heals up nicely. Just don’t want to burn all the way around the stem.
That sounds like a good idea. I do a similar cut-it-out with black knot and I have one in a crotch I have not been able to completely remove after several tries. I will try burning it out. I will use a blowtorch since I have one and it will be faster.
The main key as you mention is to not go all the way around. I have a young cherry with bad canker and one spot has only 1/4" of wood to feed the whole tree. I’m not sure its going to make it but I’m going to try.
Scott,
Would that tree be a candidate for some bridge grafting.
Mike
If it goes completely around you can try a bridge graft. But, even a tiny bit is better than a bridge in my experience, and either will eventually grow back to a fully bark-covered trunk.
I wonder if this technique will help with Black Knot.I think there is some on a Plum multi-graft I have.I’ve cut away most of it around a branch at the trunk and maybe I’ll scorch the area. Brady
Yes it will. You just need to make sure that however you decide to eliminate it, you go back to clean wood. Cutting out disease can sometimes cause it to spread through contact with the tools. (Tools can be sanitized with fire, bleach, or alcohol. Bleach is not great for the metal). It doesn’t take long to burn deep enough to get it out. The branch in the picture would have had too big a lesion to burn out, because by the time the damaged area is eliminated, there just wouldn’t be enough supporting structure left. I usually cut back to clean wood on the smaller branches, and burn out the bigger ones. Hope this helps.