down the drain

[BUFFS]

i am feeling a bit miffed(thats the polite version) about one of my victoria plum trees,i trained it for 2 years before letting it crop,a lovely healthy young tree,it produced a good crop this year and we picked them 10 days ago,i went to it yesterday and found it shrivelled up,even the bark,so it has gone from a tree to a dead stick in a week,has anybody got any idea what could have caused this? it cant be heatstroke as the heatwave never really got to us,it got warm and dry for 3 weeks,but no scorching weather..?

[WendyC]

Think I'd be more than a little miffed too! Can't think of any answers but a tomato plant of mine died suddenly in the last week or so. Plants either side in pots fine.
Is the tree really dead. Have you scratched under the bark. If it's green there's still hope. My plum tree in the garden, established 20 years or more has been dropping leaves for a few weeks, dry at the roots I guess.
I hope not all is lost.

[FB.]

My guess is canker. Victoria is prone to it.
I also guess that it was infected at the nursery, brought the disease with it in the form of dormant spores, and the disease came out of dormancy to gradually kill the tree.

Loss of young trees to canker-like diseases a few years after planting seems to be a big problem - especially if the growing conditions aren't perfect (deep, fertile soil, adequate watering, feeding, spraying).
By the time a young tree finally succumbs to diseases any guarantee is expired and many people would struggle to prove that it wasn't them who killed it.

My advice is to choose varieties which don't have known disease problems and which are fairly vigorous so that they can shrug-off quite a lot of attacks.

In my difficult soil, high vigour is just as useful as high disease resistance because even disease-resistance will fail if the tree is not vigorous enough to find the nutrients it needs to remain healthy.

[BUFFS]

i will leave it alone for now,i havent peeled any bark back to check ,but all the bark looks shrivelled and twisted,it might be a graft problem as OH says that it was getting knocked about by the strong winds last week,but we have had winds in excess of 80mph and it was not affected...i might replace it with a different type,some of those large blue/black types,dont know the names so i can search about for info,but as we have another victoria plum, that gave us 3 large basinfuls this year,enough for 12 pint jars of jam,6 1ltr ice cream tubs of stewed fruit and 2 very large tray bakes,i might be unhappy at losing that tree,but i wont go hungry...

[BUFFS]

My guess is canker. Victoria is prone to it.
I also guess that it was infected at the nursery, brought the disease with it in the form of dormant spores, and the disease came out of dormancy to gradually kill the tree.

Loss of young trees to canker-like diseases a few years after planting seems to be a big problem - especially if the growing conditions aren't perfect (deep, fertile soil, adequate watering, feeding, spraying).
By the time a young tree finally succumbs to diseases any guarantee is expired and many people would struggle to prove that it wasn't them who killed it.

My advice is to choose varieties which don't have known disease problems and which are fairly vigorous so that they can shrug-off quite a lot of attacks.

In my difficult soil, high vigour is just as useful as high disease resistance because even disease-resistance will fail if the tree is not vigorous enough to find the nutrients it needs to remain healthy.

thanks for the info,are there any consistantly desease resistant types that out perform the usual named varieties?...and can take the weather on the west coast of scotland,able to withstand all the winter wet,and the summer wet?..

[Bigmallly]

I know it doesn't help you Buffs but I suddenly lost my Cherry tree this year, no idea why, it was healthy one week & the next it was a gonna.

[BUFFS]

I know it doesn't help you Buffs but I suddenly lost my Cherry tree this year, no idea why, it was healthy one week & the next it was a gonna.

i was just talking to OH and for the first time our cherry tree hasnt been chewed to bits by blackfly,if this year was bad i would have dug it up,but,just to be awkward,it has thrived on the late spring/summer,with no visible pests,the foliage is more than double last years,it seems some you win,some you lose,still i am sorry that you lost your tree,its annoying but we can always try a different/stronger plant that may like our planting site better,its the not knowing that makes it worthwhile to give it a go,last year we had a second year of no sun,but a bumper crop of peppers/chillies from the greenhouse,i never knew they could grow in the dark..