I have 8 varieties of apples and this spotting shows up on two of them; This one, Red Fuji seems most affected. A regular Fuji/ Golden delicious nst to it seems unaffected, but an Anna apple somewhat further away, also has some spotting. A Pluot in between them is fine. Any suggestions? The four fruits shown had what look like burned areas, but other fruit was fine. Fruit damage was just those four, all in the same area of the tree and may be unrelated to the leaf spotting. We did have 3 days of temps about 100 degrees, but no other damage resulted.
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Is that scab on the apples maybe?
Look like black rot to me considering it is a warmer zone apple issue.
https://extension.psu.edu/apple-disease-black-rot-and-frogeye-leaf-spot
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No, they look to be burned, All 4 were within a foot or so of each other.
If there is no biological basis for these symptoms, it may be they were hit by some chemical spray. This tree is right by my back fence and perhaps my neighbor sprayed something. It is odd that other trees were not affected. The brown leaves on the Anna may be something else.
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Just took another look around. I had almost convinced myself that the leaf spotting must have been the result of some chemical spray from my neighbor’s yard, except that my Dorsett Golden, so close to this Red Fuji that the branches almost touch, has not a single spot on it. This is still a big mystery, and I hope someone has an answer. On the plus side, the spotting is on older leaves on the lower parts of branches. I have been doing summer pruning and new growth is so far unaffected.
As for the fruit, it could be completely unrelated. There were only four, too little to draw conclusions from. The ‘burned’ spots were hard, not rotten, and not at the calyx. I did find one other apple, a little Golden Delicious, that had a similar spot on it, but I am thinking it is likely sunburn. We did have three 100 degree + days and all 5 apples were in direct sun. I get some nasty sun damage to limbs if I don’t paint them white. This could be due to the same.
being on older leaves only and on some varieties only points to a disease as it takes awhile for the symptoms to show and newer leaves won’t have it and also different varieties have different degrees of susceptibility. Black rot aka frogeye leaf spot looks like the best guess to me…
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Thanks, Scott. If it is black rot, would I not expect to see more fruit damage?
It can be on leaves or fruit or both, it depends on the conditions. I mainly see it on leaves, and then on a few varieties of fruits later than the leaf damage.
How did you treat it?
I spray myclobutanil at petal fall, it helps with scab, CAR, and frog eye leaf spot.
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Thanks, good to know it isn’t fatal. 