home

Search Organic Gardening:


    Forums  Hop To Forum Categories  Over The Fence    What is wrong with this apricot tree?
Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
-star Rating Rate It!  Login/Join 
allenwrench
Posted
What is wrong with this apricot tree?

Found an abandoned apricot tree. It is near a road. The apricots are speckled. Looks like they were sprayed with something? Or roadside pollution? Or what? It was only recently abandoned a couple months ago. Maybe they used dormant oil when it had fruit? wrote to the apricot council in CA.... they did not have the courtesy to respond.



 
Posts: 835 | Location: NE US | Registered: February 11, 2008Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
BreezyGardener
Posted Hide Post
First off - that doesn't look remotely like an apricot, even an unripe one.

Secondly, whatever is bothering whatever it is has nothing to do with pollution. It's a disease.

There are quite a few diseases that strike stone fruits - this could be one of several.
 
Posts: 717 | Location: Culpeper, VA - Zone 6/7 | Registered: June 18, 2008Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
mountain cat
Picture of mountain cat
Posted Hide Post
Might be scale. You should be able to eat the fruit anyway, although the scale will make the skin tough.


MCat
Living with decomposing granite and struggling to make things grow without a huge water bill....

 
Posts: 714 | Location: z8 california in the sierran foothills | Registered: August 20, 2006Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
alaskan
Picture of alaskan
Posted Hide Post
I could believe that was an apricot.


But then I only have grocery store apricot experience.


Alaskan
(gardening in zones 2 to 5)

(*SPRING* avatar...Spring scheduled for May 7th)
 
Posts: 1805 | Location: Alaska | Registered: January 22, 2003Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
sweetpea
Picture of sweetpea
Posted Hide Post
This sounds like it might be anthracnose:

11e. Small, circular, tan to brown spots on mature or nearly mature fruit. Lesions expand rapidly, with a tendency to form concentric rings, and may or may not be sunken. Individual lesions may reach a diameter of 4-5 cm, but infection can be more extensive when lesions coalesce. Lesions are firm to the touch but typically develop orange to pink, slimy spore masses in their centers. ANTHRACNOSE (Colletotrichum acutatum; Colletotrichum gloeosporioides)

Do NOT use lime sulfur spray on apricots, although it is used on other stone fruits for this problem as a dormant spray.

There is a toxic spray that will kill this, which I won't list here. And I'm not finding an organic remedy for this, but I haven't had time to really look. Maybe you can find one. Smiler


----------------------
Life goes on within you and without you - George Harrison
 
Posts: 554 | Location: desperately protecting 2 acres from the critters, coastal California | Registered: February 11, 2002Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
allenwrench
Posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by mountain cat:
Might be scale. You should be able to eat the fruit anyway, although the scale will make the skin tough.


Is scale a fungus?

I'm in Z6

Yes, skin was tough. I peeled them and they were OK, although some parts were mushy so trashed those.
 
Posts: 835 | Location: NE US | Registered: February 11, 2008Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
allenwrench
Posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by sweetpea:
This sounds like it might be anthracnose:

11e. Small, circular, tan to brown spots on mature or nearly mature fruit. Lesions expand rapidly, with a tendency to form concentric rings, and may or may not be sunken. Individual lesions may reach a diameter of 4-5 cm, but infection can be more extensive when lesions coalesce. Lesions are firm to the touch but typically develop orange to pink, slimy spore masses in their centers. ANTHRACNOSE (Colletotrichum acutatum; Colletotrichum gloeosporioides)

Do NOT use lime sulfur spray on apricots, although it is used on other stone fruits for this problem as a dormant spray.

There is a toxic spray that will kill this, which I won't list here. And I'm not finding an organic remedy for this, but I haven't had time to really look. Maybe you can find one. Smiler



Thanks for all the help!

Sounds like that as well. But my spots are tiny.

Wonder if anthracnose is like the big brown rot spots I get on my store bought peaches. You know the ones, like the hard peaches with no fragrance you buy in the store and they rot before they ripen?
 
Posts: 835 | Location: NE US | Registered: February 11, 2008Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
sweetpea
Picture of sweetpea
Posted Hide Post
Usually what happens with store bought peaches, they pick them green and then ripen them up with either ethylene gas (which comes off of apples, it's not that bad) or they ripen up some on their own. But since it's not on the tree, the sugars don't get to form as much, thus not much taste. Those brown spots are just the normal rot from being off the tree for longer than you imagine.


----------------------
Life goes on within you and without you - George Harrison
 
Posts: 554 | Location: desperately protecting 2 acres from the critters, coastal California | Registered: February 11, 2002Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
 Previous Topic | Next Topic powered by eve community  
 

    Forums  Hop To Forum Categories  Over The Fence    What is wrong with this apricot tree?
 


© 2005 Rodale Inc.