Hi, I am struggling to identify the cause and PREVENTION of the following issues in my orchard. I have a row of cherries, then a row of apricots, then a row of plums and the areas most affected seem to be in this section of the orchard. I’m trying to solve the issue before it spreads to more trees in a sweeping fashion. Not sure it’s even contagious but really need help analyzing what’s going on, and if it is indeed contagious I want to properly identify what is canker vs winter damage, what is contagious and what isn’t, so I don’t remove trees unnecessarily. The photos below are different trees, to get an idea of what I’m seeing. This is not the first year I started noticing this, but I didn’t know what caused it so I didn’t do anything. It’s worse this year and more trees effected so I’m freaking out now.
Most of my apricots had dieback at the ends of the branches this spring, and a lot of gummosis in those areas. The trees with gummosis all share the same foliar issue, can someone identify what’s wrong with the leaves?
Several neighboring trees of peach and pluot have this same problem on the trunks, completely split open. Most of the splits are on the west side.
I can’t identify what’s canker vs just normal dark spots from a borer or something, and I don’t want to just start cutting into my trees and further damaging them for smaller spots when it might not have been necessary. But also don’t want them to ignore it and have it grow due to an oversight in what it really was! All damaged trunks are still carrying a full crop, but the injured trees look a bit more stressed and less “perky” than the healthier trees next to them.
My main concern is contagiousness so I don’t have this happen to any more trees, as they finally are producing and I really love them after so many years of work to raise them
Hard to tell what the primary cause is, but I would apply fungicide. Drench and make sure it gets into the fissures. We have an apricot that had a fungal infection on the trunk and we had to keep removing bark until the fissures was almost 80cm tall and 10cm wide. We did not hold out much hope as apricots are prone to apoplexy and with such fungal issue odds were small. Couple years later you can only tell where the hole was (the depth was like in your 6th pic) only by a thin scar running down the trunk. We are in an area where lichens grow on any surface and mushrooms on any wood, so I keep a jar of the fungicide ready to be used any time, I don’t like the look of some trunk.
I feel bad seeing these damages on your trees. You have put so much work to create your orchard.
Canker is quite common disease of stone fruit. It can kill the trees. Your trees appeared to sustain some injury and canker moved in. Some look like old wound. The missing bark on the trunk could be the work of bunnies a few years back.
I had cracking of the trunk, worse than yours. It was deep cracks on my peach tree. I suspected a freeze and thaw condition in late winter and early spring did that. The tree lived a few more years. Then, I decided to put it out of misery.
I am tagging @Olpea and @scottfsmith for you. They both have years of experience dealing with stone fruit.
South side can get burned by sun. But I’ve made the mistake of sprinklers hitting trunks regularly too can see similar issues. Lost a peach tree to it. A couple others seem to be healing more now. But agreed fungicide wouldn’t hurt.
I agree w/ what Tippy said. Looks like winter kill, or some physical damage then opportunistic canker set in.
Remove the tree guards, they aren’t doing anything but providing a place for borers. Keep the bottom of trees painted with 50/50 solution of white latex paint (or some light color of latex paint). You can treat the canker with a dilution of Topsin M. It’s a systemic and has good reports of attacking fungal canker vs. other fungicides.
You could have some borers down lower. I don’t see any bleeding down lower, but borers like to get under tree guards (Oriental fruit moths also like to overwinter underneath tree guards).
Make sure your trees are well fertilized and growing vigorously. That helps heal over dead areas of bark.
Read the thread on apricots. They can have separate issues vs. other stone fruits.
Peaches can tolerate quite a lot of fungal canker, and many times even heal from it
