Has my ornamental apple tree had it?

[gardening_gal]

I've had this tree for a few years (maybe 5 ish). It's in a large container and up until we moved here, it was healthy and produced apples.

Within weeks of moving here, the leaves became discoloured and the few apples that grew, were infected with something and they weren't edible. It's been like this for the past couple of years. Last year we got one apple from it but it hasn't produced any fruit this year at all and it looks very sick now.

All the leaves look like this...



We are surrounded by 'wild' and old rhododendron bushes that don't look particularly healthy either so I'm wondering if the tree has been infected by spore from those?





I changed the soil last year and fed it and sprayed it since but nothing improved. I'm wondering if I should give up on it now or if it's not airborne spores, is there something I could do?

[Kirk]

I would check for what pest there are in your area that can attack/infest an apple. You may have moved to a location where there is a higher concentration of something. Thinking of something like Sawfly.

I would also suspect the rhododendron's to an extent, they are somewhat unfriendly to any other plant. There was mention of them being eradicated at one place as they were invasive and killing native species. Think it may have been Country File about 2 or 3 weeks back.

I have a vague impression that it was not just the plant and leaves causing "poisioning" of the ground, equally I do not think rhododendron's produce spore's or similar. Whatever it was they mentioned some aspect of preventing other plants getting established that I did not expect. So a wind bourne aspect is a possibility

The removal was not as simple as cut them down, think they drilled a hole and filled with neat glyphosphate. Even then that took 2 applications.

[FB.]

The leaves of the apple look like they have scab, although it could be the same fungus that's attacking the other plants. In any case the fungus will be all over the local area and you won't get rid of it.

It's probably due to the change in location.
Some areas (usually wetter areas) tend to have more scab.
Some areas have different strains of scab which attack certain varieties more than other varieties.
Common varieties tend to be fairly prone to scab, which is made worse because it means there are a lot of scabby trees of that variety around which pass spores on the wind to other trees - sometimes miles away.

I don't think your apple tree is likely to die from scab just yet, but I don't think you'll easily be able to stop it getting scab in the future unless you can cover it when the weather is damp to prevent wetness on the leaf surface (scab spores need several hours of wetness on the leaf to germinate).

However, without rainfall on the leaves the tree may suffer from the fungal infection known as powdery mildew, which is a disease that attacks leaves that don't get wet but which are in a humid air. As for whether your apple is resistant to mildew is unknown; it varies with variety.

Without treatment, maybe it will be scab-free in some seasons but not others.

[gardening_gal]

Appreciate the replies, thank you.

I've been doing some nosing around since I last posted and it would seem that many gardens roundabout have the same type of damage on their plants.

The words 'fighting' and 'losing battle' come to mind. I'll not bin the tree just yet but I fear it wont be long before that step comes.

[FB.]

Rather than bin it, consider re-grafting it.