My neighbor went along pointing at bits on my fruit trees basically saying they had die back. The Pear Tree has scab which with careful observation & pruning I am gaining some control over & actually have fruit that are unmarked this year, so pretty sure that is what she saw on that tree.
The Apple Tree just has a few branch tips showing a similar pattern to the Pear Scab where the leaves at the very tip die & again I just prune this off & the apples are unaffected.
However my Victoria Plum has a massive branch which is nearly 1/2 the tree width & the whole thing is dead. It was fine a couple of weeks ago & has loads of fruit also dying, so it has been pretty sudden. Now if I saw this massive branch off I will have a gaping wound as I would put the width of it at about a foot.
Firstly does it sound like die back on all the trees? And secondly how & when do I deal with the Plum? Plum Beauty is right beside it & showing no symptoms & the Russet next to the affected apple is also fine to date.
Westi
Die Back on Fruit Trees
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Geoff
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It seems to me the most likely plum problem is silver leaf. If when cut back into it there is a brown core it is even more likely. You can try cutting off everything obviously dead, if there is a brown core where you cut it you haven't gone far enough, but I think the odds of saving it are small. A neighbour had a similar problem and I was amazed how quickly the rest of it died after pruning. Sorry to be pessimistic but it really doesn't sound good.