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Fruit & Orchards

Pear and Cherry have damaged bark on branches (photos)

13 years ago

Recently noticed damaged areas of the bark on two trees. It is on branches near the tree trunks. Beyond the damaged areas, the branches look healthy, with new green growth and healthy normal leaves.

What could have caused this? Will those branches die? Is it something that can spread -- is the whole tree at risk?

Pear tree:

{{gwi:104796}}

Cherry tree:

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Comments (8)

Konrad___far_north
13 years ago
This is strange, both branches lock the same, I suspect some kind
of injury, nothing to worry, looks like it's healing in pretty good.
Konrad
tcstoehr
13 years ago
I see this sort of thing on my sweet cherries too. Notice how it runs along the grain. This is characteristic of bacterial canker damage, although that's not necessarily what it is, I think it likely. Also, the way the bark flares up on the sides of the wounds in the lower picture is also convincing. Notice also how it's healing in from the sides. My belief is that the disease is very active during moist, temperate weather that it likes, but then becomes less active during dry weather later in the year. During this latter time the tree is able to do some repair work, but the disease is still there gathering strength each year. Next year it may attack different parts of your tree. On your photos it looks like you can see right down to bare wood grain, all of the live tissue layer has been eaten away. That also makes me think it is BC.
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"What caused the injury(ies)" Mabel, Montmorency is said to be good to -40F but not under every circumstance. There are so many things that have to be just right for your tree to be healthy enough to survive that limit. For example a tree that has begun to become stressed can become infected easier with bacteria P.S. short for "Psuedomonas syringae", which is an opportunistic disease. Once stressed and established these bacterias then try to kill plant cells in the way diseases do and the P.S. bacterias do "ice nucleate" adjacent plant cells. This means that the cells that are otherwise prepared to survive much colder than below freezing temperatures are less able to because the cells get injected with compounds that favor ice crystallization at closer temperatures to the normal freezing of water, when then the cells will freeze and burst. I would say most extension services are really not prepared to advise all the things you must do (tree health) because this can become a rather involved project in some weather locals and even soil types. You can't always rely on spraying to prevent initial infection sites because many of them have got specialized and resist the chemicals. I would be prepared to tell you to burn the tree after you've eaten the cherries, or at least surgically torch all the open diseased area. And if it is the disease I truly think it is (it happened in the same way to my cherry in Alaska) planting a peach (lower 48 peach experiences) will give you the same maintenance requirements because they are just as susceptible or more, to the same disease as cherries. But if you DO plant peach I've heard about a new peach rootstock bred in N.J. called 'Guardian' that has in trials shown to keep the host tree scaffold in good enough condition to prevent these bacterial infections, for the most part.
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They both look like plums of some sort, they are not sweet or sour cherries. Lets go through some of the problems. The little black bugs and yellow eggs are ladybug larvae and eggs. Those are the "good guys" eating the aphids, don't pull them off. The dead looking branches are probably due to brown rot blossom blight. It will feel slippery when wet if its brbb. The holes in the leaves are some form of shot hole. The galls are probably from some kind of mite. Its hard to tell what the long-term chances of the trees are but they need to get on a spray program if you want to keep them. Read up on these diseases/pests and their treatment, ask more questions if you have them! Scott
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I didn't really grow them with any expectations of any kind. As far as the flavor goes, to me, they are awful. To the birds they must be like caviar, they don't even wait for many of them to ripen...just eat them while still green. I've thought about grafting it over, but for some reason which I do not understand, I hear it's difficult. I think I read that sour cherry will graft, but sweet cherries are usually rejected. I find that hard to believe, but I've heard it so often from different sources I'm thinking maybe there is something to it.
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you dont want to take the time to rotate the pix.. but i should take the time ... blah.. blah.. blah ... 2nd pic.. why the giant staking procedure .. how big is that tree. and how long has it been there???? is this a fruit tree or an ornamental flowering cherry???? third pic.. any conifer that does not grow is dead ... but dead ones cna hold their needles for a year or so.. until hot weather browns them.. and makes them fall off ....is it supposed to be yellow??? or blue/green ... but dead ones.. eventually shed leaves ... i say.. rotate this pic.. and post it in the conifer forum ... [what the heck did you edit out of that pic.. lol.. the neighbor standing in your pic with a silly grin????] i know the first pic is a problem.. but i am blanking on it ... ken
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theaceofspades
13 years ago
That looks very low to the ground. I'd say someone ran into the branch scraping the bark.
jellyman
13 years ago
Mary:

I would not leave branches that low on any fruit tree. Get your pruning saw and prune them off. At some point it becomes necessary to mow around fruit trees and you are banging into branches all the time. I take off all branches below my waist.

That is physical injury, not bacterial disease, which is characterized by sap leakage. You wouldn't see this disease on pears anyway, though you might on cherries.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
maryneedssleep
Original Author
13 years ago
Thank you all. Don, I like the "below the waist" pruning rule, I'll try that (except perhaps for that one dwarf cherry tree - most of the tree is below my waist!). It's a huge relief that it's not a disease spreading through my trees.
tcstoehr
13 years ago
Don, I've had symptoms on sweet cherries that look exactly like the lower picture. It was not due to physical injury. I can in fact right now locate some of these on a Lapins of mine. I can't help but think it's an infection of some sort and I can guarantee it is not physical injury in my case. In my neck of the woods the summers are dry and rain-free and these wounds tend to clear up somewhat during the summer. Much like the pictures above.
maryneedssleep
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks, and I'll keep an eye out for more of these. Fortunately I didn't see any sap.
chefdarka
13 years ago
Can you please tell me how you uploaded photos to your question? I am having trouble with disease on my apple and pear trees and am trying to submit photos so that I could get advice as to how to remedy the problem.
If you would be so kind to tell me, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you.

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