Situation: I recently moved to a new property in zone 6b Southeast PA. There are existing apple trees on the property. I’m concerned one of them is diseased.
Questions:
Is the black area fireblight? Should I cut the whole branch off?
Is the flakey bark okay? Does it look like the whole tree is dying, or is flakey bark normal for an old apple tree?
Background: This is my first post, and my first apple tree! Many books and internet sources have pointed me here for good advice. I poked around in the categories looking for the right spot to ask about diseases, but there doesn’t seem to be a spot for it. If this isn’t the right category, or right forum for this type of question, please let me know.
Hello and welcome. This is a good category to put your question in, so no worries.
I can’t quite see the area as well as I might, but it very much looks like the tree has been damaged and is slowly healing over the wound. And as for the bark, well, old apple trees do that. So I doubt it is fire blight.
Your tree will tell you more in a few weeks, but it looks pretty happy to me. It could stand to come down a story, which would make life much easier for you down the road, but that’s a project you will want to take in stages as you learn your tree and craft.
Nice piece of property you have to work with there!
Thank you @marknmt for the response and the welcome.
Here’s another couple of pictures so you can see it closer, but it’s great to hear it might be okay.
That’s a pretty big damage area on an older tree. Wouldn’t surprise me if it never calluses over. Outside of my experience however.
Suggest you thin and shorten that tree - like real soon now. No heading cuts. Needs to be done any way and might free up energy to help it callus over that damage. That’s tree theory.
just looking at the way that branch makes a jog just above the scar it may be that there was another main branch at this point that split off, leaving a nasty tear down the tree.
Someone more interested in just the long term health of the tree, as versus the esthetics, might suggest to amputate that entire limb and be done with it.
Thank you all! I’m so relieved it’s not an issue. I’m reading lots of books and working up the courage to prune. Thanks for the encouragement to get going on it before it’s too late this year.
