Thanks everyone for the replies. I thought it was fungus but DH says it is more like nodules that are growing on the roots. The roots also put out a lot of suckers. I live on the Central CA Coast near Santa Cruz. We only get rain in the winter from Nov. to April. We have had one rain fall since last May and it dried up right away. No fertilizer, or sprinklers. We do water once a week with a soaker but it goes immediately into the ground. No standing water. We have very sandy soil that drains well. It is over a septic leach field. The tree has been in the ground for 23 years in the same location. It is a Stayman Winesap apple. It has only started doing this about 7 or so years ago but never this bad. We also get curly leaf and some white powery stuff on the leaves. I thought it was the same thing on the roots but it is totally different. Over the years we have sprayed with malathion, sulfer (dormant mix in winter), and copper oil dormat spray. Thanks for the help. Clare

Thank you! That is what it look like! So what type of disenfectant do you think i should use? I've gotten most of it off, but i noticed it is starting to come back out.. should i just wipe it off and then disenfect?

Photos, please. Pretty hard to diagnose without seeing what is going on unless we can actually see the infection. Without seeing, I would suspect it is whitefly, but that's really just a shot in the dark right now. Is the white fuzzy stuff on the undersides of the leaves?? Patty S.

Im late but this just happened to mine and this is the only post I could find that looked like it, except mine only had the white mold. Yesterday I did my routine poke check to make sure everything's good and It was perfectly fine, today I walk past it and noticed it had mould all in the cracks of it, I pushed a spine and it cracked open and was full of mush. Cant figure out what caused it either, had it for years and it survived a mealy bug attack and everything. Now I'm on a mission to find another one...