Apricot Limb wilting

General Fruit Growing
#1

Hello, I’m having a bit of an issue with my 2 year old apricot tree.

It’s very healthy otherwise but one of the limbs is wilting. There are no signs of disease or leaf curling or anything like that. The limb just looks like it would were I to cut it off and lay it on the ground in the sun—except in this case, it is on the tree! I cannot see any signs of girdling, either. The weather here has been above freezing/frost, so that is not it either.

What should I do? Not sure what’s going on, if I should cut things off, leave well enough alone, etc.

#2

Any pics? Was it a graft? If it’s just one branch, maybe it just croaked over the winter. Other than that, I don’t know what it could be, but I’m far from an expert on such things.

#3

Cut it off.

Dax

#4

I had something very similar happen to some of my nanking cherries. The limb died, I’m with Dax, I would cut it off.

#5

Check trunk bellow ground. I had similar issue and it ended up as crown rot. The tree died.

#6

Ack! Isn’t that a disease that happens when your planting area is too wet? This is planted in one of the driest spots in my yard.

#7

That exact same thing happened to a pluot I had. I should have cut off the limb. The whole tree died. I suspect it was a fungus that gets in and feeds on the xylem so no nutes get to the branch. It spread.
I believe that happens if there is damage to the limb - including a graft.

#8

Mine was not in the wet spot as well, I guess it was soil that carried pathogen. I am not saying it is the same with your tree. But checking the trunk either rules it out, or confirms, and you will not have to wait months while it is slow dying .

#9

There could be a canker you are not noticing, and all the wood beyond the canker is dying. Definitely cut it off since there is a good chance of disease.

1 Like
#10

Thank you all for tour opinions. I did cut the limb off. I didn’t see anything suspicious (no dark spots, no ooze) so who knows?

I hadn’t wanted to cut it off because now the tree is a bit lopsided. But I’ll cross my fingers that it will be fine from now on.

#11

I have had apricots just die. Usually the leaves leaf out but they just stop growing and then i chop them. At least 4 have done this. I think its rootstock related.

#12

Cold injury can cause wilting of limbs. Or it could be a combination of cold and disease.

1 Like
#13

I have a lot of experience with apricots, and it’s very straightforward. Simply plant them, knock yourself out over them, and then when they die you remove them and through them away. I’ve done it time and again.

What could be more straightforward than that?

:-)M

4 Likes
#14

Apricots here are much more susceptible to cambium kill than disease- sometimes it’s the whole tree, sometime part of it dies. Wilting branches almost never come back so cut if off, but if the tree was growing in my region- 90% odds it would be cambium kill from hard freeze after the the tree is coming out of dormancy. The whole thing is impossible for me to predict- too many variables determining a tree’s level of dormancy- but apricots are the first to wake up and often first to die. They take weather extremes much better in the high desert than in the humid region for some reason- probably the relative amount of water in their cells. Cambium cells rupture more easily when they start to fill with more water as they come out of dormancy. This is also true of leaf and flower bud cells. Water swells as it freezes and the balloon pops.

1 Like