Hi all, Best wishes! I have four photos from 4 different trees and I'm wondering if its something I should worry about... Photo 1: Kagiri Nishiki Photo 2: Linearilobum Photo 3: Atropurpureum Photo 4: Aconitifolium Any help would be appreciated.
Hi @Riverdale27 , first impression is that of Pseudomonas syringae. IMO I would remove the affected branches and apply Bordeaux mix paste to the open wounds. D
This one looks like it has healed the lesions and is still healthy albeit scarred - looks like fresh wound wood in the scars. The other three don't look very nice.
The first two I bought like this from a well known Dutch Nursery. They claim they don't know what this is. Pretty pissed about that... @Acerholic: what should you do if the whole tree is covered? :)
There won't be a lot of my tree left :( It seems all previous injuries with this bactery have healed and are now 'grey'.
I have used "Cuprex Garden", which is a product that is available to spray potatoes and tomatos. I took one of those bags with powded, added a bit water, and took a paintbrush and put it all over the infected areas. Is that OK? How often should I do that, and until when? Is this how you do it?
Morning Kurt, I apply the Bordeaux paste to the cut ends just once and leave. If it rains heavily and washes it off I will reapply. I have never used Cuprex so can't comment I'm afraid. But a copper based fungicide should help. D
I don't know this particular brand, but it doesn't leave the blue colour of other brands that are perhaps more popular. It's not exactly "bouillie bordelaise" because it contains no sulfur, but is as efficient. I have a similar product (Nordox) somewhere in my garage...
Here's a picture... Pretty sure that's what you all mean... it has 50% copperoxychloride in it... Normally you add to water and spray, but you can also add just a bit of water and smear it out. I'm going to do this a couple of times and see where the tree goes in spring. If it looks healthy, I'm not going to cut back to much. If it barely grows, I'm going Godzilla on it. I'm afraid if I would cut everything down now... I'd lose 60% of my tree without being sure it has this infection covered. There was also a product at the store that doesn't use copper, but uses sulfate. Both are marketed as anti-fungal. Any idea what the difference is between these? E.g. Cosanet Garden has 80% sulfur in it, while Cuprex Garden has 50% copperoxychloride.
That sounds like a very good plan Kurt. And from what I can see in the photo and your description , it seems quite appropriate to use. Good luck D
We can think that there are some black symptoms of bacteriosis/pseudonomas (photo 1). But not only, the deformity on the surface of the wood (photo 2) is a symptom type canker, very different from pseudonoma’s one. My opinion is : the case of these plants is complexified by something else, a rarer desease *** than well known bacteriosis, i don’t exactly know which one. ***(( as Eutypella parasitica, can be suspected , but not for sure )) The cooper treatment mentioned would be useful; but even repeated once/month, i fear that it will not be effective enough for that complicated case; it is possible that black symptoms of bacteriosis (photo 1) are secondary symptoms or messy provocated by an other disease (photo 2). The first thing would be to depot and observe the roots ; please send photos. After that, you can try to wash completely the roots and replace the substrate with a very airy one ( 60% pine bark). It is a pitty, but if those little trees were mine, sincerely i destroy them by fire. Sorry for my poor english.
I agree with @opusoculi that there is more than just pseudomonas going on here with fungal canker of various types a good possibility also. The thing with most of these pathogens is that they are opportunistic and usually only a problem on weak, soft, or dieing branches and stems. They are widely present in the air as spores which tough and healthy trees routinely fight off before they become an issue. In the long term you will have to fight the real cause of the problem rather than the symptoms. The real causes in my opinion are too fast growth and excess availability of nitrogen. There is also a very good possibility these maples have never spent a winter outside before you buy them and that means the plants internal mechanisms are not clued up to expect wet and frost in the winter and the wood does not properly harden in time. I have had many Japanese maples in the past that have suffered major limb dieback in the first year after I bought them. I am sure many have had the same experience. This is usually because the growth is soft due to fertilizer use before I bought them and made worse by repotting in a larger container while they are growing quickly. Some die but many, or even most, lose a major limb or the main trunk, and then carry on and become perfectly healthy in the following years, just with a scar and a kink in the trunk once they have recovered. I am a wait and see guy and my usual approach is to wait and see what will happen in the Spring and prune off the dead when it fails to leaf out. I do not use copper products because they would also kill beneficial fungi, bacteria and archaea which are necessary for long term plant health. Other people have reported positive effects from using copper products and I respect their opinion and experience - it is just I have never felt it warranted such a short term solution. I have already commented on Foto 4 in a previous message but will mention a couple of specifics about the others: Foto 3 looks like dieback from last year. Probably pseudomonas or other pathogen killed the twig that was pruned out at the top fork and then would have carried down in a black V shape (which now is turned to grey) before stopping when the weather warmed up and the plant could fight back. The bark and cambium on the reverse side of the branch is still alive at this point but it could go either way - if there is no elongation of the wound by spring the tree may be able to close it up in future. With these type of wounds I decide what to do depending how important the branch is. If it is growing the wrong way or can easily be replaced by another branch I will prune it out. If it is important to the structure of the tree I will try and save it but it does not always work out. Foto 2 looks nasty, I have seen this before in stems and it usually means they are already dead or going to die. Don't know name of pathogen. Foto 1 looks like pseudomonas (or similar pathogen) has come in through lesions in the stem rather than from the tip downwards like it usually does. Will probably need pruning out in spring. @Riverdale27 sorry for the long reply but hopefully it gives you a few things to think about. I know everyone will not agree with all that I have said but the best scenario is it gives you some more information to assimilate, combine with knowledge from other sources, and come to your own conclusions.
Thanks guys... I actually bought these trees from a very respectable nursery that is well known over all the world, not somebody who throws a lot of nitrogen on them. Plants are outside all winter and receive very minimal fertilizer (6-3-4). I didn't check the trees that well when I bought them (my mistake) but pictures from that day show me that the tree already had those problems. I emailed him too but he says he has no idea what these plants have, but that it doesn't look good. Find that quite hard to believe... 50 yrs of experience in growing nothing but maples, yet no idea what this is. I have the feeling I've been punked. I must say the trees were quite cheap (40€ for the Kagiri Nishiki and 75€ for the Linearilobum) which seems extremely cheap for these size of trees, but the argument was that these were mother trees that he needed to get rid off... Here are some pictures from when I bought them (end of September)
And here are some pictures from today (you can still see the copper product here and there in green...). Not sure if they change any minds...
Hi Kurt, a reputable grower would be looking at replacement or money back in this case. But if this has not been offered then this nursery is best avoided in future. I think you could be right that these we're doner or mother trees and as such have been weakened, so liable to bacteria attack etc etc. But IMO don't give up hope on them. It could take a few years for them to recover and as they have a large rootball you may come back to the forum in 2022 or 23 showing some amazing trees. Talking about Amazing. Have a look at YouTube Amazing maples. Charlie buys old doner trees and re pots them, then leaves them alone. He has a lot of success, but not 100%. So as you got some large trees for very low prices this maybe a chance worth taking. Good luck D
Thanks D! I'll surely have a look at that. I did already follow him, he has truly amazing trees in his collection! Guess humans won't be the only ones that will be put into quarantaine in my house in 2022 ;)
Same impression: most of the buds look healthy, and the few branches that are dead look like those that are dead by the end of the winter. I second that. But maybe he's a bit too pessimistic, I wouldn't burn it. As I often say, I'm desperately optimistic, I'm rather confident that it will recover. After repotting, I would prune the dead branches/twigs at budbreak and treat again with copper-based fungicide. And why not try a diluted solution of hydrogen peroxide ("eau oxygénée") ? I brought back from the dead a maple (a small one, about 30 cm tall) that had symptoms similar to pseudomonas or the like... It's so hard to make the right diagnosis, it makes it even harder to use the right medicine. But both bouillie bordelaise and hydrogen peroxide can be use in organic cultivation, so I think it might be a good option.
On the photo 1 from september, many little black spots , that is unusual. They are not typical of bacterial pseudonomas, , very strange. You must to compare with the same branch now in winter, too see how is the evolution; what difference of the same black spot do you observe ? What sort of processus is going on. Optimistic or not, that is not my question. My question is: what kind of disease is it ? And then, is there a risk ? Please open with ‘Black spots’ in green, then +
Yes it is. There are actually others at the base of the second main branch, which to me isn't a good sign. I would have treated the tree right away to avoid this un-named, but obvious disease from the beginning. Still optimistic, but a bit less now that Pierre has pointed something that I didn't see before. My "occuli" are so bad that I have to buy extra-slim glasses, otherwise they look like the lids of glass jars of home-made jam...
Can you tell me exactly how this works please (how much to dilute, how to apply, etc...)? I have no experience with that...
