Has my Bramley got canker?

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Has my Bramley got canker?

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nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 09 1:08 am Post subject: Has my Bramley got canker?
Hope someone can help....my beloved ancient Bramley has white fluffy mould growing on some of its branches..and it seems to be around what look like old wounds...they sort of look like old gashes along the branch. There are lots of scaly patches of bark on the tree too. Please help, it's the best apple tree in the world!!

OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 09 5:57 am Post subject:
That does not sound like canker - imagine you have fallen off your bike and scraped your knee on the tarmac, that is sort of what canker looks like. It sounds to me like you have wooly apple aphid along with some bark splitting. However all these things do tend to go together so you could have some canker too.

Home on the Hill

Joined: 06 Feb 2005
Posts: 313
Location: Warwickshire

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 09 7:39 am Post subject:
White fluff is probably woolly aphid. Cracks may or may not be canker. Have a google for some images of both problems to help with diagnosis. Even if it does have canker it's not the end. Loads of apple trees have it and live with it for years. Next winter, prune out the worst of it. A big bramley will be able to take quite a severe pruning. Good luck...Carrie

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 09 9:28 am Post subject:

it's the obvious request- any chance of a picture?

Bramley trees are as tough as old boots, my best ancient one has an 18 inch cavity in the main trunk where a sheep nibbled it 50 years ago and is full of 3 inch woodpecker holes ( and birds nests ). There's very little inner wood in the main trunk but it's doing fine. Sometimes young birds from woodpecker-hole nests drop down a chute inside the branches and pop out of the sheephole four foot down a bit beflummoxed.

We cut out two main branches that were about 20 ft high and ten inches diameter , (thank you Bramley for renewable firewood)and it's grown back better than ever.

I don't get much woolly aphid, the white fluffy one, but do have a fair bit of canker, which I only fret about when its on the main stem of a young tree, otherwise I just cut it out going back towards the trunk to an outward facing shoot or bud. There is, or was, stuff called Medo that was a treatment you paint on to canker. Scaly bark could be natural, but that's where a pic would help.

Sometimes the bark on fruit trees splits when a wet winter follows a dry summer and the tree wants to expand but is barkbound - advice is given in old books to slit down through the tree with a stanley knife when trees don't grow in diameter, (but it's risky as disease can enter), however that happened naturally to the trunk of a 'stuck' Cox's tree I have and it's doubled in size since.

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Fri Jun 26, 09 1:09 am Post subject:
Arrrrrrrrr, it's aphids. Never seen anything like it! Thanks for your replies folks. I'm so relieved, the tree is laden with fruit having had two winters' worth of good hard pruning to get it back in shape, I'm so glad all is not lost!! thanks again x

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