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Horse chestnut

15 years ago

I have an old horse chestnut tree in my garden. Some similar trees in the area had to be cut down recently because they suffered from something like a virus, I think. Mine has a lot of brown spots and pale blotches on the leaves this year, otherwise it looks fine, just seems to drop a few dry leaves. Could it have this disease, or could it just be symptoms of the local drought here in London. Can anyone enlighten me please? Thanks.

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Comments (3)

shrubs_n_bulbs
15 years ago
There is a fairly recent disease called bleeding disease which kills Horse Chestnuts very quickly. The symptoms are not the leaf splotches that you are seeing, but rather cankers on the trunk which exude sap that runs down and discolours the trunk. Various minor leaf diseases must be considered normal for Horse Chestnuts. The link should be helpful to you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Horse Chestnut bleeding and other diseases
lori_londonuk
15 years ago
Could you have a problem with horse chestnut leaf miner, I wonder? It's relatively new to these shores but has started to cause more problems of late - I remember reading about it in the paper last year and noticing more damage on horse chestnut leaves in my own area.

Here is a link that might be useful: article on Cameraria ohridella (leaf miner moth)
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pineresin
15 years ago
Brown blotches on the leaves sounds like Ohridella, though it could also be the minor fungal disease Guignardia aesculi, which has fairly similar symptoms.

Resin

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