I seem to have the worst luck with Anna’s this is my 3rd one and it’s starting to look like it won’t make it. The tree is about a year old, it seemed to me that it lost it’s leaves a bit prematurely, but I didn’t think that was a cause for concern. Then I noticed some of the branches were dying back. I pruned those off, but then today I saw some of the remaining branches had this discoloration in them. When I cut these off, the discolored areas were dead. The main trunk of the tree looks ok but this has me concerned. Any thoughts on what this might be?
Canker. I’d cut off the top to six inches below the nearest bud. If you have any areas that cover less than half the diameter of a branch, you can burn it out, and the tree will heal the wound. Improving drainage may help.
I was just noticing that that branch doesn’t look to be growing at a good angle anyway. I would cut it off at the collar.
thanks for the advice @figgrower, I’ve been doing some additional research and this looks like the work of FB. Found an image on line that pretty much matches whats going on with my tree. I’ve cut off the affected branches and now there isn’t much left of the tree but the main trunk. Hope it will make it.
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It should send up new shoots from the trunk (even if you can’t see any buds right now).
If it does that would be great, but I won’t get my hopes up too high.
As much as it pained me to do it, this tree needed to come out. I don’t think there was any way it was going to be saved. After looking at the other side of the tree, I realized the discoloration was up the entire trunk, so whatever this is had spread pretty quickly.
Take a look at the roots, or lack there of they were in really rough shape…not sure if this was a result of poor drainage or something else. I’m wondering if there is something in the ground that’s causing it, but the strange part is I have healthy trees within less than 10 ft, so who knows…
I haven’t followed this thread closely. But I’m wondering if that isn’t a case of fire blight that’s gone into the roots. When that happens the tree usually dies fairly soon.
I guess that could explain it, this seemed to spread really fast though. What’s odd is that I’ve had the same problem with two other trees in this spot…I’m not taking the risk and planting anything else here.
In a susceptible scion and rootstock fb can spread very quickly.
Thought Anna’s were supposed to be less susceptible to FB…