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What is wrong with my apple trees? Apple canker?

 
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Hello,
Does anyone know what is happening to my apple trees? I have googled around and concluded that it could be apple canker. Is there anyway to treat this? Or are they too far gone?


Appletree_1.jpg
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Appletree_2.jpg
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Appletree1_2.jpg
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Appletree1_3.jpg
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Appletree1_4.jpg
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steward
Posts: 4837
Location: West Tennessee
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Those sure do appear to be cankers to me. The limbs that appear to have canker may eventually succumb to it, and those can be pruned off. Canker on tree trunks may eventually cause tree mortality, but sometimes that's not always the case. One of the problems with large cankers is the interior wood tissue like the cambium layer and even wood beneath that become exposed to other infectious wood rotting organisms and pests. Healthy vigorous trees can often heal themselves, which may appear to be what is happening in the appltree1_2 pic. The bark develops this round kinda curling appearance as it tries to cover and grow over the wound. Some of the cankers look absolutely awful, like the appletree1_4 pic. That's a big, gnarly canker right amidst a multiple branch union. The branch in appletree1_3 is a candidate to be cut off like 12 inches behind the canker or all the way back at the trunk (it's hard to tell how far down the branch that one is or the size of the branch). If those were my trees, I would do appropriate pruning where applicable, and I would make an attempt at treating some of the minor cankers with a spray of Effective Microbes and raw neem oil, and repeat those applications all year long, for a few years, and then only time will tell if the tree bark slowly grows over the wounds. Btw, cankers are caused by bacterial and fungal infections, usually at a previous wound site (but not always). It's usually the girdling effect of cankers that cause death to the living tissue past the site of the canker.
 
Posts: 44
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
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Same questions about these two trees:

Apple tree, pippin.  I had a terrible fireblight infection on my pears and asian pears two years ago.  I think one of my apples was also affected.  Dark round rings around the trunk, produced almost no fruit.  Could it be fireblight?
Fireblight1-.JPG
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Fireblight2-.JPG
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pollinator
Posts: 978
Location: Greybull WY north central WY zone 4 bordering on 3
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Nikita some of those look like impact damage growing out with a bit of canker maybe with it.


Don no idea on the fireblight but the cracking in the second picture is likely a major change in water conditions.  I have caused similar cracking in russian olive and cottonwood by radically increasing the amount of water the tree is exposed to.
 
James Freyr
steward
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Don- Those black spots right near the top of the first picture look like a bacterial ooze that could very well be indicative of fireblight. The second picture however, looks to me like it could be freeze damage. I'm curious if those vertical splits in the bark are on the south or southwest facing side of the trunk. What can sometimes happen with freeze damage is the sun warms the southern facing side of the tree during the day in winter time and water & sap can start to flow up the trunk and then after sundown it can freeze splitting the cambium and bark tissue, and it makes itself evident later on in the spring when the tree comes out of dormancy and sap really starts flowing and tissue swells spreading the cracks further apart making them visible.
 
Don Eggleston
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Location: Santa Cruz, CA
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Thanks to you both!
 
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