Old apple tree in trouble

[Simonandzoe]

We have now watched the 80 year old apple tree at the end of our garden through two seasons, the first one it produced a little good fruit (~20 Lb cooking apples), this year it seemed to start well with literally hundreds of fruit - unfortunately these have now almost all fallen off the tree and have stopped growing with most very small.

The tree has also lost a lot of leaves through the summer, with all turning at least partially brown. Reading various advice online leaf scab seems like a possibility, but the fruit itself seems largely unaffected (apart from being small). Photos attached below, can anyone confirm if this looks like scab? If so then I understand treatment is to clear well around the tree and treat with fungicide when leaves return in the spring.

We also have a couple of dead branches and all large branches are pockmarked with old and fresh holes (with one possible canker site), the garden is full of wood lice (as are a lot of the fallen apples) but presumably these will not actually be damaging the tree? Any ideas what else could be damaging the bark & do I need to treat with insecticide too?

The tree itself seems to be a reasonable shape, though one part is quite crowded and I am planning some pruning this winter to thin out.

All advice gratefully accepted!

thanks

Simon

[VirginVegGrower]

Time to get the cankered branches off and paint the cut end with a cut branch/wound paint - think it used to be called Arbrex or something like that anyhow. Is it structurally sound or has it had it's day? You really need somebody like FB to look closer at the leaf issues picture but 80 years is a good age for an apple tree, not that I am suggesting you hack it down. You may want to think about fitting it with some grease bands, clear any weed around the base and mulch maybe unless in grass. If it can be salvaged, feed each Spring to give it a boost.

[Simonandzoe]

Spring feed

Thanks, what do you suggest feeding with in the spring?

[Two_Sheds]

A good watering and a mulch of homemade garden compost is what I put round my young apple trees

Those squiggly lines in the leaves, in photo 1, look like a leaf miner (not serious) http://www.which.co.uk/documents/pdf...ers-153737.pdf

here's a link for canker: Apple canker / Royal Horticultural Society

The fruit looks fine, lovely apples

[VirginVegGrower]

Depends on whether you're organic or not. Two Sheds compost comment is one to follow. Any proprietary feed sprinkled around will perk it.

[FB.]

The fruit is reminiscent of Bramley or possibly Blenheim - is that correct?
The variety which you have and the part of the country in which it is being grown will have a big impact on attempts to deal with its diseases.
The "cooker" bit also makes me suspect Bramley.
Also, its "biennial" habit (fruits every second year) sounds like Bramley, although Blenheim can be biennial/unpredictable.
Small fruits failing to develop and dropping prematurely can also be due to poor pollination (no nearby pollinator tree, pollinator tree not flowering at the same time, bad weather affecting bee flights etc).
Bramley (and Blenheim), being triploid (therefore not producing viable pollen), will not produce much fruit without a suitable pollination partner nearby.

Picture #1 shows a combination of apple scab and leaf miners. There is sufficient undamaged leaf area to keep the tree going. Don't worry about it.

Picture #2 might be cankers, but might also be areas damaged by woolly aphids (which often co-exist with a canker). Might possibly also be "burr knots" - some varieties try to send roots out from the branches, which can be cut off and grown like cuttings from currant bushes and don't need grafting to a rootstock.

Picture #3 is canker.

Just from "gut feeling" of picture #3, I think that your tree is about average susceptibility to canker, maybe even having some resistance. Most apple trees will get some canker - ideally it should be pruned-out at an early stage, or, if on a major branch which you really don't want to lose, it can often be scooped-out at an early stage with a penknife. Having resistance doesn't mean immune, but it can mean that the disease progresses slowly enough to give time to act, or that the tree can eventually fight-off the attack.
Unfortunately, your canker in picture #3 appears to be a few years old and has not been dealt with promptly. Curiously, it appears to have some degree of healing at the edges and it may be that the tree has won that particular battle against that particular canker. My Blenheim Orange had a canker whiched look like pic#3; my tree walled-off the canker, the canker then dried, shrivelled and dropped off like a scab, leaving a scar of missing bark. My tree is now slowly healing-over the wound and the canker is no longer active.

The usual control for canker is to spray with "Bordeaux Mixture". This can also be painted onto particular areas, although some varieties don't like the copper sulphate in Bordeaux mixture. I recently found a canker - entering via a wound - on the trunk of my Gascoyne's Scarlet. I promptly scooped it out with a pruning knife and painted-over with a little Bordeaux. I don't normally use chemicals, but it is a young and fairly rare tree which I did not want to lose - and I was the one who caused the wound to its trunk in the first place!

Wet weather is a major contributing factor in scab and canker attack, but poor soil conditions (pH too high or too low, or soil of low fertility) can also affect a trees ability to fight disease.

Can you provide a few pictures from a greater distance, to get a feel for the tree size, shape and the extent of the cankers?

Also a close-up of the roughened areas in picture #2.

.

Also; you don't mention your location. This, along with which variety it is, would be my biggest influence on deciding whether to try to save the tree because a favourable climate would help tremendously in the battle against canker.

Also, good nutrient supply could help with its disease resistance. Plenty of potassium ("K") and phosphorus ("P") can really help disease resistance. Go easy on any nitrogen-containing fertiliser because too much nitrogen ("N") can encourage disease - especially canker (too much N will also cause lots of growth and little or poor quality fruit).

[Simonandzoe]

More info & photos

FB thanks for the detailed post, more info & lots of photos below;

We think the tree is a Bramley, last years minimal crop was large apples, green with slight hint of red when ripe.

We are located just off the south downs in Hove, alkaline soil, I fed with iron early this year.

We are in an urban location with quite a lot of apple trees nearby, next door's tree is similar but not exactly the same variety, comes into bloom a week or so later - we both had lots of blossom this year - fruit has 5-6 seeds this year.

Looking a bit more closely there are various differing patches of old and new bark with significant marking, one branch (~5 inch dia is totally dead and losing it's bark, another of similar size has a large gash of missing bark 3 ft long, 2-3 inches wide.

Along with the fresh bark damage some bugs are evident, I assumed these were woolly aphid, but googling that it looks quite different - photos of these are attached to a separate post to follow as I can only add 5 photos to each.

thanks again

Simon

[Simonandzoe]

Photos of fresh bark damage & bugs

Photos of fresh bark damage & bugs as promised

Simon

[FB.]

The tree doesn't look too badly cankered. Bramley is reasonably resistant and its vigour often outgrows diseases. For now, I would not worry too much about the possible cankers; they aren't an immediate threat, or likely to be so even in the next year or two.

The dead branch will have to be removed, or it will rot and spread disease.
Remove it during winter. Make a neat, straight cut (it often helps to make a small cut on the underside of the branch, a few inches from the trunk - this prevents the branch spitting the side off the tree as it will do if cut from only the top). Make the main cut not too close to the trunk, but not so far out as to leave a large stub which continues to rot. Probably half-inch to an inch from the trunk would be a good place to cut it - there should be a noticeable narrowing at the best point to cut it (called the "collar" of the branch). At the collar, the tree will be better able to heal it and to resist invasion by wood-rotting fungi.
If the wound is large, you may want to use something such as Arbrex "heal-and-seal" to protect the wound.

All the pruning would be best left until the tree has dropped all its leaves.

Unfortunately, the tree appears to have simply been planted about 20yrs or so ago and left to do its thing - having not had any proper pruning - just occasional half-hearted hack-backs.

I'll need to have a think about how best to tackle it because it needs a lot of work and it will take a few years or periodic pruning before it can be back to being an attractive and productive tree.

Essentially, the tree needs to be wider and flatter. Each winter you need to be working to reduce the height by cutting-out upright shoots (these will also calm its growth because upright shoots don't fruit as well as horizontal shoots).

To get you started on what I'd be aiming to do *gradually* over the next 2-3 winters, I've violated your original picture showing what my "before and after" objectives would be for your tree (mainly: wider canopy, flatter canopy, less crowding, cut-out vigorous young upright growth in summer):