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Cherry Tree has brown rot?

11 years ago

I can't tell if my Cherry tree is suffering from brown rot. My cherry tree has brown leaves all over, but even on the same branch, further up the branch has green leaves.

Is this mix of brown leaves, green leaves normal or is my tree suffering from brown rot?

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Comments (10)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
11 years ago
where are you??

looks like what i have on just about every tree in my MI garden.. due to hard frosts and freezes ... a few weeks back ...

and what am i missing.. as a few brown leaves does not equate to rot ... is there anything oozing from the tree.. a forgotten pic???

ken
Dzitmoidonc
11 years ago
Brown rot is a disease of the fruit. What you appear to have is a twig borer, maybe Anarsia lineatella.
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I purchased a Vandalay cherry from Raintree nursary a few years ago. I had the same issue. The tree would not grow. I later found out that it was on Gisela5 rootstock which is a dwarf rootstock and does not do well in arid and dry conditions. So this is what I did. I purchased a Rainier cherry tree on a Colt rootstock and planted it. The tree did very well. Then I took a branch from Vandalay and grafted it to Rainier. The graft took off like crazy. The same tree that didn't grow more than a few inches in two years, grew by two feet after being grafted. So my advice to you is to graft your tree to anther tree which has a rootstock that can tolerate the weather in your region. Best of luck
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Laura: Do you mean you have brown rot on the cherry fruits or on the trees? If your cherries are advanced enough to have brown rot, how are you doing that in a zone 4 climate? My tart cherries are still very small, green, and hard, and I live in a much warmer zone than you do. Brown rot does not usually appear until cherries (or other stone fruits) are close to the ripening stage. You don't say how old your tart cherry trees are, but if they are over 15 years or so it is likely they suffer from at least some degree of bacterial disease, often called canker. This disease can be retarded, but not eliminated, by a couple of good dormant sprays with a strong copper product like Kocide. Bonide, soap sprays etc. do not contain enough fixed copper equivalent to be effective. I have not found sulfur or lime/sulfur to have an noticeable effect on this disease, which may be responsible for the deterioration of your fruit clusters. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
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Iowajer: You do not need Orbit or Bumper or much of anything else to successfully grow tart cherries in Iowa. I am from Iowa so know the climate, and believe me Virginia is worse for just about every insect and disease. Yet I have grown tart cherries for 35 years with no problems -- except for the following: The normal lifespan of a tart cherry tree like Northstar or Meteor is about 20 years, give or take 5 years, but it is not age alone that kills them. It is the bacterial disease that develops with age that does it. I have had 2 Northstars, 2 Meteors, and 1 large Montmorency, all planted in 1979. The Northstars were finished before 20 years, one Meteor lasted 22 years, the Montmorency about the same, and the last Meteor was removed more recently at the ripe age of around 25 years. All of them were victims of bacterial disease and nothing else. All of the symptoms you describe can be attributed to one or another of the signs of bacterial disease. In advanced stages, the disease, which develops cankers on the limbs, eventually kills those limbs which should be cut off promptly. In the meantime, cherries become smaller, and often rot on the tree, though the trees will continue to produce. Leaves begin to look punky. At 15 years of age, and showing the symptoms you describe, your tree may have about 5 years of useful life left. None of the cocktail of chemicals you applied to your tree would have much, if any effect on bacterial disease, even expensive products like Orbit, and most particularly the useless combo sprays sold by Bonide. The best tactic against bacterial disease is to delay its onset, and that is done with one or two thorough dormant sprays of a copper product like Kocide that has some real copper strength. You should begin dormant spraying with copper while the trees are young, well before any evident signs of disease appear, just as you would with any stone fruit tree. With foresight, you may be able to hold off this disease for an additional 5-10 years, and you should apply dormant copper to your existing tree as well, although you are conducting a rearguard action that cannot cure the disease at this stage. Rather than putting a lot of money into expensive chemicals that will do your tree no good, I suggest you put the bucks into a new Northstar or Meteor tree that will be ready to take over when your existing tree checks out, as it surely will do. I planted a new Meteor 5 years ago when the handwriting was on the wall, and a new Montmorency this spring. The new Meteor is covered with fruit and ready this season to take over from the last old tree I removed. Both my climate and yours, BTW, are ideally suited to growing tart cherries. Some years I have had so many that I made 20 gallons of wine from pure juice. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
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Most medicines are poison. Fungicides are designed to kill an organism not closely related to you (as life forms go). Do you mean poison or synthetic poison? Maybe you just mean "synthetic compound". Although fruit tends to be more susceptible to rot the riper it gets, I stop spraying fungicide here a month before harvest so the fungicide has long since become inactive by the time I harvest my fruit. Anything remaining on the fruit isn't anywhere near enough of a poison to even kill what it was designed for. My stone fruit has a short shelf life and I lose a few fruit to rot but I even am able to grow nectarines this way. However, you may not be so lucky in your climate. You have to experiment to discover least-spray options. The residue issue is another matter, but I suspect that the residue of the fruit I produce with 2 insecticide and fungicide sprays in spring and 2 or 3 fungicide sprays in summer, well before harvest, leaves only the tiniest trace by the time I eat my fruit. I'm not saying that spraying closer to harvest causes a risky exposure, but as long as I don't need it, why bother. If you are nervous about using pesticides, I suggest you research this forum for growing with ziplock sandwich bags around individual fruit. With this method I believe you can get by with a single spray at petal fall.
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jean001a
11 years ago
Brown rot is a disease of the fruit but can cause the braanch end "flags" as shown in OP's images
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
11 years ago
As jean notes, brown rot is not just restricted to fruit - ornamental/flowering cherries get it in my location on a pretty routine basis and it does show up as the branch end flags and/or stem dieback. Occurrence of the disease is greatly increased in warm, wet springs, which many parts of the country experienced this season.

Recommended control is to prune out and destroy the affected branches, cutting back at least 3-6" beyond any visible signs of infection. If the problem persists in subsequent years, chemical control with a registered fungicide is suggested as well.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
11 years ago
well it seems you warm zone peeps have a different opinion than us freeze zone peeps..

so the first question becomes .. where is OP ???

its probably too early in the season.. for rots in MI ...

anyway .. looking back at the pix.. it is an extremely old tree.. and infringing on your eaves and roof and gutters ... meaning you have other issues beyond what made the leaves brown ... extreme pruning or removal ... is probably necessary ...

and if removal is an option.. then the brown stuff is irrelevant ...

ken
charliebarkin
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks everyone for their input. I am in the Seattle WA area.

I agree that the tree needs to be pruned back a lot, but I am afraid the laws here regarding tree removal are fairly strict, so I don't think that is an option at the moment.

I self diagnosed the problem with the tree, but I have no history with trees (having grown up in the desert around cactus and small bushes) and I didn't notice any issues with the tree until after the blossoms fell off.

I guess its possible that a late freeze could be the issue but I dont recall a particularly cold day/week this spring.

{{gwi:374866}}
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
11 years ago
If you're in Seattle, then it's brown rot. Pretty much a fact of life with cherry trees in this neck of the woods. Some years much worse than others - last year was a doozy!! Hard to find a cherry, fruiting or otherwise, that was not afflicted.

I'd also comment that a PNW'er response to tree size and placement is rather different from many living elsewhere. This is the land of the big trees - native trees here can exceed 60' and it is not at all uncommon to find one or more in an average 5000-6000 sf urban/suburban lot, specially in older, established neighborhoods. Even most ornamental trees grows fast and large here. And as the OP notes, many neighborhoods will have very specific regulations about tree removal. But judicious pruning to maintain safety as well as the health of the tree is always advised.
jean001a
11 years ago
ditto what gardengal148 said.
True also here in the Portland, OR, area.
yawiney
11 years ago
My Vandalay I got bareroot from Raintree (in Western Wa.) has something really bad that could be brown rot. All the new growth is turning brown and dying off. I have 3 other cherries very close. Totally healthy. Should I pull the Vandalay?
lucky_p
11 years ago
Well, I've learned my new thing for the day; can I go home now?

Had never known - or, maybe I just glossed right over any such information - that brown rot affected leaves/twigs - as my only concern was with the fruit.
Filing that away for future reference.

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