Cedar Apple Rust

15 years ago

One of my three apple trees is showing early signs of cedar apple rust. I live in SW MO and we have lots of cedars close by. I live on 25 acres so theres not much I can do about chopping them all down, I literally have hundreds if not more of these in the woods. With all the rain and damp weather the rust spores have started. Thankfully at least so far only one of my trees is showing the early signs of rust. I do spray with a copper fungicide early before bud break. I also use a hoticulture oil spray before bud break. Is there anything I can do now that its showing signs. Im not going to get any fruit this year with my trees. This is year 3 with the two red delicious trees. Next year should be my first fruiting year. Anyways is there any treatment that will remove the rust from the leaves or prevent it from getting worse, or do i just let it be. thanks

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Comments (4)

glenn_russell
15 years ago
Hi BrandonD-
I donÂt believe the copper or oil will help with the dreaded CAR. My Red Delicious trees get CAR pretty bad as well.

I would think your only real option here would be Immunox (also goes by Myclobutanil, Nova, Eagle, Rally, etc), though IÂm not sure what stage your trees are at, nor how much damage theyÂre showing. In my conversations with others, I believe it has 96 hour post-infection effectiveness, but if youÂre actually showing symptoms, it may be too late. That said, perhaps a spray of it will put the brakes on any further damage? The problem is going to be finding it. I ran into the same thing you just did last year. By the time it arrived 9 days later, it was really too late. But, at least I had it for this year. I wasnÂt able to find it at the local stores (Home Depot) or nurseries. All I could find was the "Immunox Plus" which also contains an insecticide NOT rated for fruit. The good news is that I donÂt think that CAR usually kills a tree in one year. It just sucks it energy, damages leaves and any fruits. Just get prepared for next year. CARÂ welcome to my nemesis.
-Glenn

Here is a link that might be useful: Amazon: Bic Superstore: Immunox
brandond
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for that information. I do have some other fungicde from fertilome. Would you even bother trying to spray it on the tree. Its very early in the signs of CAR. I see very small yellowish orange dots on some of the leaves,not many just a few. So does the immunox prevent the tree from infection or what exactly will it do or prevent, oh and when would you apply it. I knew once the colder cooler wet weather happens that the rust would be back. Last year it lost a few leaves after July and that was about it. Fortunately the one tree just has trouble.
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Thanks for the responses. How toxic is Immunox/myclobutanil? The warnings of course make it sound horrible and our water comes from a well not far off. Unfortunately, there will be no getting rid of the cedars, for family reasons. And while the area around the trees is mowed and underneath is kept mulched and weeded, the rest of the field (and the surrounding fields) are basically tall weedy grass that gets mowed once a year. That's not going anywhere either unless someone gives me a brush hog and a tractor to pull it with. I guess the best bet moving forward is to try to spray at the right time(s) in the future. I'll look into the suggested sprays for this year, though. Randy - My William's Pride isn't bearing yet (just put it in this year). I've had them from farm stands though and thought they were good enough to try planting. I don't have any tasting notes or anything, though :) Anyway, I hope they're good. Thanks again. Sam
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Cedar apple rust is a very common apple problem. The spray I use has an ingredient of myclobutanil in it. It looks like Fertilome Fstop has it, too. It really depends on how serious is your CAR issue. If it's not serious, you can get away with 2-3 sprays in a growing season. If it's bad, your first spray should be done before apple flowers bloom. Don't spray during blooming period. Then, one spray after petal fall and then 10-14 days after that. Read the label and follow the instruction.
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If you treat your trees regularly with a fungicide as OSU says to do, you ought to be able to keep them alive. Cedar Apple Rust is not a persistent problem in my area because almost nobody near me grows apples or crabapples, so I rarely see those globs of orange hanging in the trees. I have two neighbors who grow apple trees, and they've cleared away cedar trees (to the extent that they can) so there are none too close to their apple trees. In both cases, their particular sites are somewhat sheltered from the prevailing wind and that seems to help their trees. I imagine they spray their trees to keep them disease tree, though I've never knocked on their doors and said "Hey, do you spray your apple trees?" (grin) I do not think CAR is an annual problem in much of OK, but maybe it depends on where you live. We almost never see it here in the dry years (which we have plenty of) but will see it occasionally in the spring that follows a wet summer. I believe the infection occurs in the wet summer, but you don't know it is there until the following spring. If you are in a part of OK that generally is wet every year and has higher humidity than what we normally here in southcentral OK, you might see it more regularly there than we will see it down here. Do you know why your cherry trees died? Cherries do need very well-drained soil.
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Thanks for all the info, lpittman8. The native crabs evolved along with CAR... I've never noticed any significant impact on fruiting... but I'll also admit that I've not really looked all that closely. Good to know. Nearby mayhaws are HEAVILY infected with the cedar(juniper)-hawthorn strain of the fungus... I'd been thinking about getting a mayhaw, but now maybe not now. :) Serviceberries seem to be spared so far this year, but some years, in some locations I've seen serviceberry fruits reduced to masses of fungal fruiting bodies... I planted a serviceberry about 6 years ago, and it was always heavily affected. So, I chopped it down a couple of months ago. :) I also had a couple of quince trees—both were heavily affected, and one died a couple years ago. same for some pear varieties I saw in a pear orchard back home in AL, We have a couple of pear trees, and I think they have fireblight, but not this fungus we're talking about. i don't have time or inclination to spray anything, and i'm probably not going to invest the time to clean-up/remove infected leaves on the ground, either. I probably won't either then. If they still bloom, that's good enough for me. I don't necessarily care about the fruit per se. The M.angustifolias only produce fruits that deer will find appealing; if you want something YOU can enjoy, I'd replace them with a good 'edible' crab... especially if you're limited for space. I'm not really limited for space, but I'll keep that info in mind in case I want to plant any more crabapples. Thanks again for all your help. I'm glad I can just stick with the status quo for now. My 2 crabapples are approaching 5 feet (I said 3 feet in my original post, but I was mistaken), so hopefully they'll bloom next year.
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chuck60
15 years ago
I found regular Immunox in my local Lowes in Columbia. I've been spraying it since March because we had early warm wet weather and CAR has been my main disease problem. I just finished the last application I plan, right after petal fall. So far, none of my trees are showing obvious signs of CAR, though I haven't doe a leaf-by-leaf inspection yet.

Chuck
glenn_russell
15 years ago
Hi Brandon-
I'm not familiar with Fertilome. My quick search seemed to say that it was a brand name, and not a fungicide? Apparently Fertilome makes a Dusting Sulfur, could that be what you are referring to? I didn't find Sulfur to effective against CAR, but then again, I didn't do a full season test. If you have it, and it's rated for CAR, then I guess it couldn't hurt to try it... but, with your infection already started, and sulfur's questionable effectiveness, I'm not sure I'd hold out too much hope.

Harvestman gets good control of CAR with a spray at petal fall and a spray 10-14 days later. He doubts that youÂd ever need more than 3 sprays to control CAR. Because this is my first year with it, IÂm actually doing 1 or 2 more sprays than he recommends sticking closer to the label of 7-10 day intervals. Michael357 and I started closer to tight clusterÂ though, with all my trees at different bud stages, even that is an estimate. IÂll know the results closer to August.

Glad you were able to find it locally Chuck. I didnÂt check my local Lowes, but thatÂs good to know.

Perhaps some of the experts will weigh in with some other ideas.

-Glenn

Cedar Apple Rust

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