I’ve had 3 apricot trees die on me. 2 were Tomcot on Lovell and 1 was Hunza on Citation. In each case they flowered and started to leaf out…but the leaves were tiny and then they would die. I still have one remaining (all were planted at the same time) apricot which is Puget Gold on Krymsk 86. That tree is all leafed out and going strong and has never had any issues. I’ve always thought it was some sort of winter injury or borer related.
For those of you that have lost trees to the unknown, do you plant something else in the same spot or not because of disease concerns? I lost an Orangered this spring and am considering my options with the location. Seems like it might be worth removing a few wheelbarrows full of dirt before replanting.
Maria,
Did you spray your trees with anything, oil, copper? Water running down to lower branches and affects the leaves on lower branches leads me to wonder.
That’s a great point I change locations on stone fruit and plant apples or pears in their place. If I have trouble with apples or pears I plant stone fruit in their place. Something not brought up is never grow tomato close to stone fruit because it’s a magnet to verticilum wilt. When you buy tomatoes you will will notice the disease resistance on the tag for example VFT means the tomato is resistant to vertilum, fusurium wilts and tobacco mosaic virus. Gardens should not be companions with orchards. I do grow rye over my gardens over the winter sometimes to ensure V does not get started in my garden because it’s closer to my stone fruit than I like which is about 30 feet. When I plant my orchards in a long row I plant apple pear apple plum peach so when a disease hits it’s harder to travel through my entire orchard rather it kills a tree or two and stops hopefully.
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Nope…there is lawn now in those spots.
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If you remove the soil, you’d better remember where you dump it so you don’t plant something suceptible to wilt there.
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Mamuang, yes, I sprayed copper and oil in spring, then copper again in the beginning of May when I saw the first signs of disease, then daconil a couple days ago. I sprayed all surrounding trees as well, just in case. Today after yesterday’s rain I do not see any new strikes, hopefully the disease passed.
What about chemical burn? Just a thought.
Re: apricots dying, the bottom line seems to be winter cold and fluctuating early spring cold is not good for them at all. Killing of limbs or whole trees is possible from this. I myself lost one tree this spring, I never have lost an apricot before but we had much more cold and fluctuating cold this spring.
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I don’t believe it’s fluctuating cold. Our winter and spring temperatures fluctuate much more than out East. The big difference is the wet winters out East and dry winters where apricots seem much better adapted. I’ve heard of unexplained apricot tree death both in the humid East and in California. Both have wet winters. West TX and NM have dry winter and spring weather and apricots don’t seem to die in spring for unexplained reasons.
If what I’m saying is correct it’s likely that a root issue is part of this syndrome.
Add me to the list. I lost an outdoor Tomcot and maybe an outdoor Harcot. Both were doing great going into dormancy last autumn. Both were also on Citation roots. The Tomcot didn’t leaf out at all, but the Harcot looks like it pushing some buds on lower branches now (late). There is a Robada on red leaf peach next to them that is doing fine so far.
This year was a little different in that there were two extreme temperature plunges (February and April) that were far below the daily/weekly averages.
[quote=“fruitnut, post:25, topic:5818”]
If what I’m saying is correct it’s likely that a root issue is part of this syndrome.
[/quote]I’ve been a little suspicious of apricots on plum roots. I’ve been thinking about setting up an area with good drainage so I can try apricot on apricot roots.
Bob’s apricot problem is a very common problem here. Here it’s called “apoplexy” (http://www.actahort.org/books/12/12_4.htm). Apoplexy is not a name of some disease, it’s more of a set of conditions which lead to it. One of them is thought to be what Scott mentioned, other is the rootstock, the variety (late flowering varieties seems to be affected less) and some disease like http://www.caf.wvu.edu/kearneysville/disease_month/diseasefocussept.html
@BobVance most probably the rest of the tree will survive this year, but usually in a few more years such trees die anyway. Last year one of my apricot trees (and many other in the area), which is ~10 years old had that same problem, so I had to cut half of the tree. Thus far this year the remaining half looks ok.
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Given how many apricot deaths happened this last winter to all of us easterners in spite of all the trees being within their hardiness zones means the fluctuations have to be doing something as they are what was different this year compared to previous years.
That said, it could be that e.g. moist roots in this weather is also a requirement - it could lead to bark with too much water in it which can get more easily damaged in the cold (more water diluting other chemicals in cells will raise the freezing point of the wood). If the ground is dry the trees may be able to handle the ups and downs better. Or there could be some other difference in the weather/soil/moisture/etc.
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I’ll likely pull mine up this weekend. I’ll update with any info about the roots.
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Here are few pictures I took yesterday, all of them from Monilia damage.
Here is a full grown tree that wasn’t sprayed (my neighbor’s garden). 25+ years old. Not sure you can see it but you can see the damage all over it.
Detail
Detail2
Detail3
Another tree, about 4 years old in different place by local river (it kills whole branches on young trees)
Detail on branches
Detail 2 with sap flow
I live in “apricot county” and there are thousands of apricot trees in my village, huge orchards and many of them abandoned (no one takes care of the trees) so the disease can spread freely. Last 3 years we had very mild winters (temp. didn’t go lower than 15F and just for few days per year) so that is most likely reason why the disease hit so hard this year.
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Paul…i don’t think that is what i had happen to mine here. I remember mine didn’t even get full sized leaves out…they were tiny little leaves that just stopped growing.
I’ve had enough apricots die that I think I’m seeing some of each cause. Of the two this year, both (Early Blush and Monique) are coming back strong from the roots, so I think it was just the tops that were killed by the ~16F night we had when they were in full bloom. The two that died last year (Tomcot and Harlayne) didn’t send up any suckers, so I’m guessing that time could have been a root issue.
in May this cot ’n Candy seedling tree had some beautiful young fruits, I had been waiting for four years.
I guess It was my most beautiful looking cot ever. A few weeks later, the growth stopped. My opinion the cause of death was not Monilia damage
noteworthy last fall there was some white colored juice came halfway through the stem, I guess the sap flow disturbed at that point
initially the decline process went very slowly, the first signals: the tree began becoming bleacher the leaves they were light yellow in color external characteristics of a monillia infection were not visible.
Imagine my surprise, during the removal of the tree I saw a young shoot rise up.till now i’ts growing and It looks healthy the new shoot appeared from the stem above the ground the tree is on his own roots
can I assume the roots are still healthy? I haved remove the diseased part? that was a week ago.
There grow new leaves, I hope a small miracle occurs.
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that branch is cot-n-candy or rootstock? I can not see the area graft
it is a seedling growing on his own roots