tree disease ?

[rico]

Help !,  I think a couple of trees on our garden,[ apple & a cherry ] have some bacterial canker, but am not sure there is a  thick build up  flakey , white deposit on  most branches , which does not look healthy. Has anyone any advise or is there a product I need to  buy , & when would be usual to apply it ?

[Gardengirl]

Hi Rico,

We have a similar-sounding problem with our apple trees some years. They are quite old, but bear very good fruit and give wonderful shade when it's hot. We get a thick white deposit, which looks a bit fluffy - maybe this is like you've got. This has occurred for a good number of years, and doesn't affect the fruit at all. We garden organically, and have done nothing about it apart from cutting off any small branches affected that don't have fruit on them (so, in summer). Some years it can be really bad, this year there is virtually none.

I heard on 'Gardeners' Question Time' on R4 this week that this is a good thing to do - they called it 'summer pruning', which I often do with short whippy pieces as well as the white stuff. They also mentioned that thinning out generally helps. We had a lot of branches cut earlier this year by our son, so maybe that thinning out has helped. We seem to have done the right thing by default.

Sorry I can't help with suggestions about sprays etc, but maybe if you summer prune and thin out later, it might help.

I would also mention that any white branches I cut are not left lying around for insects etc to go into as I normally would; they are put straight into bags and taken to the tip - I've always been worried about spreading it.

Hope this helps, Jo