An appletree with fungus

[Mark_Riga]

This is an old apple tree near the house and a picture of a fungus on it. The fungus is dryish and leathery. Would anyone know how problematic this is? It leans away from the house slightly so hopeful it wouldn't cause too much damage if it fell but a branch did break off a couple of years ago.

[nickdub]

Your tree looks to be in generally very good health - not sure what the fungus is.


If you want to encourage the tree to heal itself a bit more then its sometimes possible to clear out the inside of a hole like the one on your second picture with a sharp hooked pruning knife, then fill the hole with some sort of inert substance which may allow the tree bark to scab over it - (maybe some wood filler ?)

[veggiechicken]

Looks like a lichen of some sort. I wouldn't worry about it.

[Lardman]

All adds to the character of a lovely old tree. I might be slightly concerned about the depth the wound hollowing out the trunk, probably not enough to do anything about it though.

[Jungle Jane]

You could clean it off & put some Arbrex on it to seal it,protects the trees when they have an open wound.

[Mark_Riga]

I will probably just leave it then as not an obvious death threat for it. I don't think it is lichen though but I've never seen any mushrooms on it. I might investigate the depth of the hole and fill it if it seems possible though there are a couple of fairly deep holes like the one shown.

[Mark_Riga]

A couple of heavily laden branches have snapped off it in the last 2 weeks. After the first fell off, i thought I would give it a pruning this winter but with another snapping today, may be it is giving up the ghost? Do trees have ghosts? Peter Wohlleben seems to think so in his very interesting book "The Hidden Life of Trees".

[ameno]

That's definitely a fungus, but I know of no parasitic fungi which look like that, so I'm fairly sure it's one which feeds only on dead wood, and will be growing on the long-dead heartwood.
It won't cause any direct harm to the tree, but the heartwood rotting out will make the trunk weaker.
As for the branches, unless they were very big, I doubt the fungus had anything to do with them falling off. Just a coincidence.
It looks healthy enough in the picture, and you say it wouldn't fall on anything if it fell over, so personally I'd just leave it. It may well yet last decades.

[Mark_Riga]

Thanks for the reply ameno. I don't think the fungus is the problem. The wood where the snaps are looks healthy enough but a bit dry. I think i'll take some off the longer branches this winter and may be thin the fruit out next year and see how it goes. The longest branch to snap is about 14', pictured

[nickdub]

Thanks for the reply ameno. I don't think the fungus is the problem. The wood where the snaps are looks healthy enough but a bit dry. I think i'll take some off the longer branches this winter and may be thin the fruit out next year and see how it goes. The longest branch to snap is about 14', pictured

[ATTACH=CONFIG]88622[/ATTACH]

actually looks very healthy for an old tree .

My advice would be to use a pruning saw to cut the snapped branch tight back to the trunk now and clean the surface especially the cut bark smooth with a sharp knife. Pruning well the tree is not dormant gives a better chance for it to start healing over any wounds.

[Mark_Riga]

Pruning well the tree is not dormant gives a better chance for it to start healing over any wounds.

I was going to wait till I collected the apples off the branch but there are so many on the rest of the tree I don't need to. I'll cut it off tomorrow and look what the damage is where another bit snapped off.