Fruits are like a long-term garden investment that rewards for years to come. They are a great asset to any landscape or garden. Fruits trees provide shade, flowers, a yearly harvest, and a high talking point. But sometimes they can be vulnerable to diseases as well.
Growing fruit is a rewarding & enjoyable past time. However, most vigilant & experienced gardeners may occasionally face a problem. Most of the fruit trees in your garden happily do their thing – setting fruit, flowering, thinning and ripening – with very little input.
So, to help you tackle the challenges and problems posted by mother-nature we have put a range of fruit tree problems and we’ve also given you some tips for solving these common issues.
Fruit Tree Diseases You can Face
Fruit trees are very diverse, but some common fruit tree diseases can be found, many of them. The best thing you can do to avoid infections is to prune the tree to allow sun & air through the branches, as diseases can spread quickly in dark, damp environments.
Winter Moth Caterpillarfoul
It’s a non-native kind of pest that can attack many different plants, including apple, cherry, and crabapple trees. The adult moths mate during warm evenings in late fall & winter & lay eggs in tree bark crevices. The larva, which is like an inch-worm caterpillar, hatches in the early spring season & can quickly defoliate a tree. When you see the caterpillars in your fruit tree, spray Bt (Bacillus thuringinesis). When the caterpillar eats this naturally occurring bacteria, then they stop feeding & die. Always use Bt early in the season and use Spinosad (which is a natural pesticide option) after tree flowers.
Peach Scab & Leaf Curl Peaches
Leaf curl peaches & peach scab, plums & nectarines often fall victim to the same problems, like peach scab & peach leaf curl. With peach scab, the fruit & new twigs usually covered in the round with black spots surrounded by a yellow halo. Instantly remove the affected parts of the tree. With leaf curl, the leaves of the tree are dried up and curl upon themselves. Must apply a fungicide before the period of bud swell.
Suckers On Fruit Tree
Fruit trees are very notorious for producing suckers, stems that originate from the root system & are said to suck the life out of the tree because they don’t bear fruit. Suckers can also grow from the rootstock if your fruit tree is grafted. So if you want to remove suckers, cut it clearly & dig down to find the origin. Must clip a sucker at soil level, & next year two or more stems will appear at the same location.
Cherry Leaf Spot Disease
It’s a disease which is caused by fungus. This disease can affect all types of cherries, although the tree which is tart in nature usually show the most significant damage. The disease appears as the purple look on fruit tree leaves and then ultimately leaves die & the tree defoliates. The fungus overwinters on diseased leaves, so the best thing you should do in this situation is to gather fallen leaves and then destroy them. Use fungicide sprays to keep the disease in check.
Brown Rot
It’s a very destructive kind of disease for all stone fruits. The brown rot fungus causes blossom blight, twig blight, fruit rot & branch canker. This brown rot of ripening fruit is pervasive, and this rot usually occurs when the fruit reaches its maturity level.
The first evidence of fruit infection is the appearance of a small brown on the tree that can turn into the slight wound caused by insect feeding or egg-laying activities. The rotted area then rapidly expands & then eventually becomes covered with tan-grey fungal fruiting tufts.
To control brown rot, several things are needed to do. Some of these practices are discussed below.
Sanitation and Orchard Management. Removal of mummified from trees, & also from the ground, also destruction is essential. However, brown rot can’t be controlled by this method alone. Proper pruning is also needed for improving air circulation. By doing this, you will be able to promote the drying of foliage & soil. And this can also reduce the chance of twig punctures of the fruit.
Adherence to a Recommended Spray Schedule. No other method of control is as good as adherence to a recommended fungicide spray schedule. Many commercially available fungicide formulations are used in a brown rot control programme for Oklahoma.
Fire Blight
Fire blight is also called a bacterial disease that attacks crabapple, apple & pear trees. This disease is seen in many parts of the world & is strongly present in the Mid-Atlantic. This disease can affect various parts of the plant, but this disease is much famous for its making leaves look like they’ve been burned. You can treat this disease by planting a resistant variety, avoiding high nitrogen fertilizers, & destroying fallen fruit, twigs and leaves. By antibiotic & copper sprays you can get control over this disease.
Bacterial Cranker
Bacterial canker is a disease that can be found in almost every fruit tree. The most common symptoms of this disease are holes in the leaves, as well as new shoots, & even whole branched dying off. It’s found in stone fruit trees & those trees that have suffered frost drainage. You can get rid of this disease by cutting off the affected branches several inches below the condition & apply a fungicide.
