I've been wandering in the shadows on this website for many years and have finally joined ranks today. Looking forward to further participation in this great community.
Today I wanted to share a photo of what looks to me like a fungal issue that the majority of our apple orchard has been hit by over the last couple+ weeks. I'm new to orcharding this year, and cannot figure out what this might be, although it's definitely concerning:
So we have 60 various apple trees varieties (some dwarf, some semi-dwarf and including Liberty, Prisine, CandyCrisp, Red Fuji, etc.) on B118 and B9 stocks, both stocks of which have been hit. The trees are on a slight southern exposure slope just north of a small drainage pond. We've had the orchard in a heavy rye/vetch cover that was seeded in the fall, and the majority of this was just cut down for the first time last week. I would assume its height (5 ft+) might have reduce fungal spore transit, but maybe also reduced the breezes necessary to prevent the ideal fungal environment in our wet spring we've had.
We're in zone 6a Missouri around the Cuivre River Valley, and definitely in native cedar area, but this didn't quite look like cedar rust to me. A co-worker thought frogeye leaf spot might be the ID, but I'm unsure. The Candycrisp variety was hit hardest, as shown in photo, any many of the other varieties are at various more immature stages with the light orange spots and a fewer larger brown ones.
Anyway, hope there's an apple expert out there to help lend an ID, or to possible steer me into the right direction as far as further questions to ask/answer.
