I have a Black Boy Peach that I planted this year. While I was clearing weeds around the tree I found two spots that were damaged on the tree. One is about a 2 inch slit that has sap running out, the second is a slit on a narrow branch that looks black around the slit. My first thought was peach borers but I did not see anything black in the sap Can someone identify what disease or pest this is?
Canker and borers or just canker~. Did you spray?
The only thing I sprayed this year was copper on my existing trees and immunox on all trees. I sprayed from March through early May (roughly).
I hate to admit that I know this from experience, but that first photo looks a lot like it was damaged by a 2 legged critter with a lawnmower! ha. I assume you’ve considered that already and know better, but sometimes I don’t notice a tree when I bump it- only days or weeks later and they often look like that. Either way, hope your tree recovers.
Where are you located? The 2nd, 3rd, 4th pics make me wonder if it has to do with weather-related injury like freeze and thaw causing bark to split and canker moves in. Just a guess.
Don’t think it was a lawn mower. On all my young trees I put a minimum 3ft x 3ft (some as large as 6ft x 6ft) chicken wire fence around the trees due to deer pressure. I guess it could have been debris flying up from me cutting around the fence. I have damaged one tree with a weed eater last year but this damage is way to high. I am in Virginia zone 7 and we did have some cold weather after it was planted - lower 20’s. I haven’t seen any other damage on any of my tree. I have seen some canker on my Hale Haven peach but nothing like this. In the past the 1st year trees have not gotten canker. . The apple tree and cherry tree I bought from Raintree have done well. If it is Canker is there anything I can do now? If it is borers I assume I need to cut them out?
You can use a clothes hanger wire to probe to see if you could stab any worms inside. Canker can happen to a young tree if bark is injured. I had a plum tree that had canker upon arrival to me.
I didn’t think it was a lawn mower but I had to be sure. But it wouldn’t be from debris, only from a direct hit I think, and you have wire around it then that wasn’t the case. Oh well…just had to be sure. More of my fruit trees than I care to admit do have little nicks like that from my bush hog/finishing mower bumping them. Glad you are smarter than that.
I have same thing appeared on apricot. Looks like bark cracked along the trunk in several places. Almost look like tree trunk is growing much faster than the bark itself, if this is possible. Damage was not there in the beginning of the summer, so I don’t think it is freeze damage, more likely excess of water. Trunk is painted, so you can see how much it grew for the summer. I just found interesting article form Cornell, where they explain reason for bark split. Mine fits this:
Fluctuating growth conditions may also cause splitting of bark. Dry weather (which slows growth) followed by wet or ideal growth conditions may cause an excessive or vigorous amount of growth leading to splits in the bark.