Help. I have had this plum tree for 5 years now. We had some issues over the last two years with black knot disease, but pruning resolved that and there has been no issues with that since and this year we FINALLY had 4 plums! Unfortunately, we have a new issue. Almost over night our tree went from healthy to dead. It is looks like early fall and the leaves are brown, curled and falling off. I cant see any cankers or obvious issues other than this weird pink/purple thing that when poked seems to crumble white spores? Any advice or if someone can point me in the right direction that would be awesome. I live in Mass and it has been and very wet summer.
1 Like
That thing looked like slime mold.
Could you please post a few pics of your whole tree and close up pics of the leaves.
What variety is this plum and what county you are in MA?
1 Like
Was anyone spraying herbicide in the vicinity?
many times plums here die suddenly for no apparent reason. i think its our heavy clay as it doesnt drain well. you see it mainly in rainy years. once the tree starts to defoliate you can literally grab the trunk and pull it out of the ground with little effort. roots have rotted. happened to 2 apples i tried to grow in ground as well.
Until about 2013 I used a chemical containing crop dust and it gave superb results against all the fungi and not only. I used a 2 -3% mixture, after which trees had a slightly yellow tone on them. But unfortunately after 2012 or 2013 all chemicals with crop dust were banned in Europe, if not worldwide, reason for banning is that it has a very long decomposing period.
There are other chemicals available today, but they’re not even quarter as effective, as the above mentioned.
If there’s a few trees like this, I would cut it out, scrape it thoroughly using a metal wire brush (or whatever you call it), let it dry for a few days. If the wound is deeper than a cambium layer, don’t worry, it should heal by itself, but you can add some wax. This photo shows the wound which was done 2 years ago on a 5-6 y.o. plum tree.
1 Like
No, none of our neighbors use herbicide