Gummosis is the oozing of sap from wounds or cankers on fruit trees. Gummosis can result from environmental stress, mechanical injury, disease, or insect infestation. Cytospora canker or Valsa canker, the fungal cause of gummosis, affects stone fruit trees such as apricot, cherry, peach and plum. Cytospora infection is distinguished from insect damage and mechanical injury because sawdust or pieces of bark are not mixed with the sap, as would be the case with insect damage or mechanical injuries. Cytospora canker is also known as perennial canker.
Symptoms and diagnosis:
On trees infected with cytospore canker, new shoots or leaves may turn yellow or wilt. Sunken lesions develop on the bark. These lesions enlarge and gummy, amber-colored sap oozes from the bark. Curly orange threads (fungal chains) may emerge from the bark as the disease progresses. Leaves may turn brown and fall off. The disease kills the wood below the cankers, often resulting in the death of entire branches. Infected wood and the defoliation that may occur weaken the tree, but if the disease infects the trunk, the entire tree may die.
Life cycle :
Cytospora canker is caused by two different fungi. The fungus overwinters on dead wood or in sunken lesions. Curly orange fungal chains release spores in the spring which are distributed by winds and splashing rain. Once the spores land on a host tree, they enter through insect wounds, mechanical injury, or winter damage. Symptoms are more common in warm (70-85 degrees F) and humid spring weather, as moisture makes it easier to penetrate wounds. Trees emerging from dormancy are the most susceptible to this pathogen.
As the main causative agent of gummosis, apricot, peach and plum attack weakened trees, do your best to keep yours healthy through mulching, watering and nutrition. optimal. You should consider fertilizing with nitrogen in late winter or early spring. This will prevent your tree from producing growth that might be damaged by cold weather in the fall.
Trim with precision and remove damaged tissue:
Be very careful when pruning. Make proper cuts and do not trim in wet weather. It is important not to leave stumps or flat cuts and not to make flush cuts. Remove infected branches and twigs by carefully pruning down to healthy wood. Do this if possible in dry weather, in summer, so that the wound heals as quickly as possible. Sterilize your tools with Lysol wipes or 10% bleach between cuts. It may not be possible to prune all the damage if the fungus has spread.
Use professional tree care services:
Sometimes treating your orchard for disease prevention and cure can be overwhelming. Professional citrus care and maintenance services can help protect your orchard from potential diseases and other risks. Tree care services include how to give your citrus trees the proper nutrition, irrigation and treatment needed to combat Phytophthora gummoses and other diseases that might damage your orchard. A certified arborist will help keep your grove of trees happy and healthy all year round. Whether you are looking to prevent Phytophthora gummosis or other diseases, has the experience you need to protect your trees.
Protect from sunstroke:
Protect the bark of your tree once morest sunstroke during the winter. To do this, you have two options. The first is to paint the trunk with half white latex paint and half water. A human hand uses a brush to apply paint with latex diluted on the trunk of a tree fruit tree. The other solution is to apply a white film to the trunk from December to March.
