I’ve got this burnt edge leaf thing on a few trees in my orchard - including a tree I top worked to William’s Pride in 2021. William’s Pride is supposed to be resistant to a lot of things. Spring has been very dry and sunny. Is this a nutrition issue or the start of fire blight (again, last year was very wet)
William’s Pride not pictured. 2nd shot is Flemish beauty pear. The yellowish leaves on the apple trees is what had me thinking nutrition.
I do not see aphids. Could also be fungal curl. Or watering/nutrients.
I switched our fertilizing routine to watered down by 2/3 liquid treatments. I just do it more often. Seems to have helped incidence of fireblight some.
You can usually tell if it’s a nutritional issue or a pest/disease issue based on what leaves are affected. Nutritional issues usually only affect certain portions of a tree for deficiencies. For example, new leaves at the top or tip of branches are certain deficiencies, and older leaves lower down on the plant are different deficiencies.
If it’s affecting leaves in various parts all over the tree, then it’s likely to be insect or perhaps fungal in this case. Which could legitimately be argued are nutritional issues as well, perhaps involving soil health.
Leaf tip burn from excessive fertilizer is also something to consider if you’ve been giving it anything recently.
Thanks for “verbalizing” that.
I’m starting to wonder if this is two issues. The apple trees are pretty consistent yellowish leaves and burnt leave edges which makes me think nutritional deficiency - which nutrient?
The pear on the other hand, has good color and just the one area of burnt leaves.
I know from a soil test that the soil is way deficient in boron but they stripped out most of the other trace mineral tests from the basic test so I’m going to have to have the soil retested. Backlog at this time of year is like 4-6 weeks.
Boron actually is exactly the deficiency that causes those types of symptoms in new leaves at the top of a branch. Calcium can as well, but boron was my first guess, I just couldn’t tell where on the tree the issue was at. What you said about the soil test kind of confirms it then.
With the apple tree, I’m not sure since it’s all over.
If were talking “Burnt” leaves is this what fireblight looks like on a pear? Harvest queen and shes been hit by rain all spring. I cut scionwood too late in the season and I think the cut let in something.
Boron is definitely something that should be added to agricultural soils, especially here in the northeast. You can just add it using borax and calculated as suggested by a reliable source (i.e. university extension office) Might as well do that either way.
That’s extremely useful since I know I need to add boron “anyway” I can do that while I wait for the soil test results.
Thank you.
Any opinion spray vs sprinkling borox within the dripline?
Magic pixie dust.
Definitely direct application with the ground. The other thing is you really need very very little to correct deficiency. So it is best to apply to as wide as possible an area if you can.
Calculations per 100sqft/per tree etc will be such tiny applications it is best to apply to a wide area to avoid problems. This site says 9.1lbs per acre so bear in mind you will not be applying much at all so err on the side of caution.
You might be able to do the ppm calculations if you have your soil test, otherwise I’d follow the recommendations per acre proportional to your area. If you’ve never added Boron to your soil before its less of a concern.
I have applied borax to the Honeycrisp and it’s descendants that I’ve planted to deal with bitter pit but none to my other trees. Until tomorrow, at which point I’m going to sprinkle borax around all my apple trees. The soil in my orchard has very little boron in it.
I think I applied like an ounce of borax to young tree although the UNH recommends a much higher rate:
"Apply boron every 3 years. Old fashioned borax is 11.1% boron. Check the percentage of boron in the product you buy, and see the table below to determine how much to apply. Weigh the material to be sure you do not overapply, as excessive boron can be toxic to trees.
For young trees that have just started bearing, apply 4 oz of borax (11.1% B). For medium-sized trees, apply 8 oz of borax; and for large trees, apply up to 12 oz. of borax."
I’ll have to hunt up the table I used previously on per tree borax application. Don’t want to over apply borax…
Thanks!
Make sure you apply plenty of calcium with the boron because it will prevent any toxicity with it. Foliar spraying is the fastest way to deal with a deficiency, but as already stated, it’s a very small amount that is needed.
If you have issues with bitter pit and with Honeycrisp apples, you really should read this article if you haven’t seen it already, it’s a good one: https://www.growingproduce.com/production/debunking-the-myth-of-calcium-and-fruit-quality/
Honeycrisp is known for hyperaccumulating potassium which messes with calcium usage. Foliar spraying manganese helps with it.
We have a few varieties of pears like this here in the UK. The varieties were all early leafing, and were caught one night by either a late frost (frost burn), or a very sunny day (sun burn).
They have all recovered very well. But they have no fruit.
Different varieties of pear trees growing next to them were not affected.
I had not read this but I had been made aware from a couple of sources that I probably needed to spray with manganese. My area (Minnesota) is boron poor so I still need(ed) to apply borax. Yakima has both plenty of calcium and boron. It’s a wonder they spent so much time focusing on calcium foliar application.
The part I didn’t get was that my boron shortage might manifest as leaf discoloration and the edge “burning”. I bet my '22 trees drop all their fruit this year before I get this corrected. Ugh.
Looks similar to when I mixed my spray wrong and sprayed as tree was just greening. Edges and tips of first leaves got that look.
Not all MN soils are likely to have boron deficiency.
Yeah I have to admit that my first thought was drift or misapplication. The local farmer hasn’t sprayed yet and the only thing I’ve applied is copper pre-bud.
Not sure about your apple tree but your pear tree has fabraea it is a form of bacterial spot. It happens during rainy seasons. If its a european pear it is hightly susceptible to fabraea.
Fireblight is tranfered by pollinators so the spur on a pear trees goes black first then it transfers to the branch.
I thought it waa fabraea but oncle the brancmh stated turning black I knew it was fireblight. This is fireblight.
Thanks. I was wondering if it was Pear Psylla. Have not researched pear tree issues yet so I don’t know anything. My pear trees are 2 years old.
Has been bone dry here for weeks - until this week’s 2.5" of rain - and blossom just ended so I haven’t started spraying yet. if it ever dries I’ll spray immediately.
Calcium deficiency does not always come from the soil. Prolonged cool temperatures at leaf-out can reduce the mobility of calcium. I saw this constantly when I liven in Tacoma. The long/cool Spring weather lead to an under-grown mid-rib on the leaves. The leaf will be crinkled looking and cupped, with the mid-rib being shorter than the rest of the leaf.
I began spraying calcium chloride cake at a concentration of 1 gram per gallon. I am American, so I do not feel bad about combining Imperial measurements with metric. If the mobility issue is from overfertilization, the calcium spray will probably not help.
Another possible cause of the brown edges on the leaves is if there was a freeze after the buds began to swell. I have brown edges on many persimmon leaves because of that.
