I have a young Royal Crimson cherry tree that is diseased (I assume bacterial canker?). The limbs still look okay and buds are swelling, but
the trunk is badly infected. The trunk seems too small to remove infected tissue, so should I cut my losses and remove at this point? If so, is it worth cutting below the canker and regrafting? Pictures attached.
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I had this happen on a Van cherry many years ago. I cut it around 5 or 6 inches below the canker and the tree thrived and has produced many cherries since. Even though there was only a few inches of graft left on the tree, it grew back healthy with no more canker issues. Good luck!
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Looks too much wet soil,
Then wrong rootstock or wrong place,
Then remove
Sometimes gumming is caused by mechanical damage and isn’t canker. If the tree hasn’t been damaged I would guess it is probably canker. I would try cutting the cankers out. But the best practice is to cut the cankers out in the Summer rather than now. I have had to cut them out on my sweet cherry. I have BlackGold and it unfortunately is prone to canker. Other sweet cherry cultivars have more resistance. Also certain rootstocks are more prone to canker like Gisela 6. Here are two links that talk about gumming and canker. The second one has good information on how and when to cut cankers out.
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