It’s been a while guys, I hope everyone is doing well. I have been sneaking in to read a little over the past year but had a rough past year.
Last year we experienced about 4 days of 120° back to back…most of my trees lost their leaves. I was horrified. Believe it or not my apple trees fared the best. This year, by some miracle, all of them came back and are doing great. Weird year though as everything seems to be 3 weeks off (Later). I am still picking Eva’s Pride peaches…nuts! I will be bugging you all with pictures of the orchard and garden soon enough.
On to my question…
I bought A Dixie Red Delight from Century Farm Orchards 2 years ago, M-111 rootstock. It seems to have had a borer in the rootstock plus the sun damage from last year…I assume…is what caused all the bark to fall off on one side of it. It looks to me that it is starting to heal but I am not sure I am correct.
What do you guys all think? It is growing fine so far…late to open (Expected) but has new growth.
Haven’t seen any ground squirrels around but we do have some rabbits. I have never seen them in the back yard …always in the front but who knows. I was thinking borer because of the tunneling in the wood. Do you think it has a chance?
Chances are good for your tree if the opposite side stays healthy.
I used to live in the high desert not too far from you and the rabbits and ground squirrels would girdle almost everything except oleander. They even ate my rose bushes. Apple bark was also one of their preferred meals.
My solution was to keep a couple of dogs in the yard.
seems like it is healing with creeping cambium callus, but if you should get subjected to 120F soon, probably best to bandage with parafilm or saran/glad wrap and then with aluminum foil to help reflect radiation/heat. Foil may also put off would-be bark nibblers.
exposed sapwood will lose moisture to ambient atmosphere even in cold weather. Extreme heat will quickly scald and parch…
Welcome back Puggy. I have one apple tree that looks a lot like yours. I removed the dead bark and it looks like worm or borer damage but I’m not sure. I secured the tree so it would not blow over and two years later it is almost healed over. Good luck and welcome back.
Speaking of cats, I have an apple tree that when young was serving as a scratching post by a neighbors cat. It shredded up the bark pretty bad, but it healed up once I put bird netting around it. Just FYI.
