Scab problem

[burnie]

My James Greive and Howgate Wonders are quite badly affected with scab.I garden organically and am trying to aviod having to spray.
I picked off the worst of the leaves,which seemed to help as the newer leaves seem to be less affected.
Then the fruits started to get scabbed as they got bigger.Again I removed the worst affected,hoping to reduce the problem,which has not really happened,any ideas?

[chrisguk]

Scab seems to thrive in a wet environment, pruning the trees in a more open fashion to provide more airflow towards the centre and between branches could help somewhat.

Also, planting Chives underneath your apple trees is rumoured to help prevent scab, although this might not be a viable option dependant on your growing conditions.

Dont forget to burn any trees/leaves that are infected, or atleast dispose of them away from your trees.

[chris]

I think James Grieve is prone to scab too, I'm sure that when I was posting about them our resident apple expert, FB mentioned this to me.

[FB.]

James Grieve has an erratic reputation for scab resistance. In some parts of the country, it has some resistance to scab, but in other parts it is very susceptible. I suspect that the local variants of the scab fungus cause this variation in susceptibility.

With James Grieve being very popular in Scotland on account of its frost tolerance, I suspect that there are a lot of scab variants that have evolved to attack James Grieve.
With Howgate Wonder's reasonable cold tolerance, it may also be over-used in the North of the UK, and so the local scab population has evolved to attack it.

In more Southern regions - especially East Anglia - JG and HW don't suffer much scab.

In organic systems, it is very difficult to prevent scab. Wet areas also make it difficult to stop scab.

The solution is to either grow varieties with strong resistance, or use several fungicide sprays each season.

I prefer to go for natural resistance, although you may have to settle for lighter crops and slightly less tasty fruit.

In a wet part of the country, you might also need good resistance to canker. If your JG and HW have been battered by wet weather this summer, you may find that next year they are troubled with canker. Neither has any particular resistance to canker, although HW is not hopelessly susceptible either.

If things don't improve, I'd consider trying:

"Grenadier" (scab and canker resistant)

"Reverend Wilks" (scab and canker resistant, but quite early flowering and may get frosted while flowering)

"Belle de Boskoop" (scab and canker resistant, but may get some scab on the leaves and maybe not particularly frost tolerant)

"Crawley Beauty" (scab and canker resistant, late flowering misses frosts)

"Annie Elizabeth" (scab and canker resistant, quite late flowering)

"Cockle Pippin" (scab and canker resistant, but will get some scab on the leaves)

"Egremont Russet" (scab and canker resistant, frost tolerant, but will get some scab on the leaves)

"Winston" (scab and canker resistant, some frost tolerance)

If your climate is exceptionally wet, it may be that no apple will grow successfully.

[burnie]

Thanks FB,great help,we are still eating the fruit,it's just some of the HW are splitting,so they are coming off early.Thanks to every one else too,my trees are quite young and are well ventilated,just the dreary weather just lately I guess.
The irony is,my "unknown"that was not what the label says it is,has more fruit,more leaves and less scab!!