My father-in-law has an apricot tree that has a lot of dead branches. It's planted in zone 5a in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan. We had a frost in late May, but he's not sure if that's when the damage occurred. Earlier in the spring, all the branches had leaves and the tree bloomed.
Any idea what's wrong with the tree? Is this just frost damage, or does the tree have a disease?
Here's a close up.
My 4 yr old apricot, that had bloomed and set fruit, had every leaf turn brown and die this spring, and the new leaves that try to come back are also withering.
I wonder if it could be the same problem. My aprium is just fine.
This message was edited Jun 10, 2008 9:25 AM
Apricots are members of the rose family. The problem may be fire blight
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pp/extension/tfabp/firepm.shtml
Apricots do not get fireblight. I believe that is brown rot shoot blight. See the following link for a picture and description:
http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/tfipm/brownrot.htm
I had a bit of that on my apricots this year and had never had it before. I think all the rain we had this spring made for a brown rot explosion and the twig infections. Look into what sprays you can do next year to control it. For this year you want to remove all of the dead branches, plus any fruits which look rotting on the tree. I don't think it will be this bad next year even if you don't spray, because the spring weather this year was quite unusual.
Scott
That doesn't look like my tree at all - and it had never tried to fruit before this year.
The rootstock is putting out shoots that are definitely not apricot, but the apricot seems to be dead, Jim.
I see a few strands of silk in it, as if there were caterpillars, but no signs of them, and there wasn't any chewing on the leaves, when it had leaves.
