Deacons Nursery Article
How to Keep Your Fruit Trees Disease Free
Depending on the type of fruit tree you have, you may have to do various things to help protect it from disease. There are many different types of disease that fruit trees can have, and certain types of trees may be more prone to have one type of disease over another. For example, fruit trees that bear pitted fruit, such as cherry trees, plum trees, or peach trees, are much more likely to suffer from disease than any other type of fruit bearing tree. So, if you have any of these fruit trees on your property, you will need to do some extra work to keep them healthy and disease free.
The most common disease that plagues fruit trees is called Brown Rot. This is actually a type of fungus, which attacks any fruit left on the tree once it has mostly been picked over. If new fruits grow while the old, fungus infected fruits are still on the tree, this Brown Rot can spread to the new fruits as well, rendering them inedible. One way to help prevent this from occurring is to carefully prune your trees, so that air can more easily flow through the branches. Fungus likes damp places, so this is a good prevention method. It is also extremely important that you pick all remaining fruit from the tree, and that you don’t leave any lying around on the ground near the tree, as this could be a breeding ground for Brown Rot.
If you start to notice dark, soft spots on the branches of your fruit tree, you may be dealing with what is known as cytospora canker. Tree gum seeps through the bark of the tree, which forms something similar to a callus. The most common way this gets into your tree is through damaged spots, such as areas that may have been hit with a mower or weed eater, etc. Pruning can also help prevent this as well.
If you have plum trees, then at some point you may have to deal with Black Knot. If your tree suffers from this, you will spot large growths or tumors on the branches of your tree. To get rid of this, you will need to cut off all of the affected branches, and make certain that you dispose of them. Don’t turn these infected branches into mulch, as you may only re-infect your tree.
With cherry trees, you may have to combat Cherry Leaf Spot. To prevent this disease, make certain that you keep the dead, fallen leaves cleaned up from around your tree, and don’t recycle them into mulch, as this could spread the infection right back to the tree and start the process all over again.
When you start noticing that the fruits on your tree are ripening, you should work to have them all picked within a fourteen day period. It is better to do this on a daily basis, picking the ripe fruit, and making certain not to leave any on the ground around the tree. This will help protect your fruit and your tree from insects and disease.
