North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

Title: Re: [NAFEX] Canker on sweet cherry

If you are in Oregon, your tree just has Pseudomonas.  It's rarely fatal  on cherries and it's not a really serious problem.  It may girdle a smaller trunk, but usually it only gets a limb or two, at worst. Best remedy is to do nothing except remove any limbs that die.  It will seriously affect many apricots and will bother European plums but not too badly, but not Japanese plums.  Cherries vary in sensitivity.  It's spread by birds sitting on the goo, or by rain.  In dry weather it pretty much clears up and trees will grow out of the damage.  It lessens as trees get older and have thicker bark that blocks entry of the organism.  At that point, mosly twigs and small limbs are affected.
-Lon Rombough, in Aurora, OR.
>     

> I believe I have canker on my sweet cherry.  (this
> is probably unsurprising in Oregon).  I'd love to be 
> organic, but I'd like even more to have fruit.  I'm 
> getting mixed advice:
> - prune (sterlizing pruners) and paint with lime 
>   sulfer mixed with latex paint
> - spray everything with lime sulfer mixed with oil
> - spray everything with copper product mixed with oil
>
> Or just dig out and dispose the cherry - it was a 
> bargin multi-grafted one I bought on a whim in 2002?  
> I hate to use anything as toxic as lime sulfer sounds.
>
> What about the other stone fruits nearby, apricot, 
> peach, plums... are they at risk?  I had fairly
> serious gummy blobs in the apricot in 2002, but it
> seemed to get better, there were no signs of problems 
> in 2003 and it looks fine now. 
>
> Lisa in Ashland Oregon
> USDA Zone 7, Sunset Zone 7, 1800'