2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The milky sheen attacks mainly fruit trees. Most of all it amazes plums with apple trees. The twigs on diseased trees gradually die off, and sometimes the trees themselves die - this fungal disease can cover not only individual branches, but entire trees. As soon as leaves with a silvery tint began to appear on the fruit trees, it is time to start fighting the milky shine
A few words about the disease
When damaged by a milky sheen, the leaves on the branches acquire a light pearlescent whitish and silvery tint, and after some time, sections of the leaf blades begin to die off on them. All leaves become brittle and gradually dry out.
The bark on the affected tree branches gradually darkens, sometimes you can even notice the fruiting bodies of the fungus parasitizing in the wood on it. Such mushrooms are leathery plates reaching three centimeters in width and rather tightly attached to the bark. As a rule, the lower parts of such mushrooms are orange, brownish or purple in color, and their upper parts are gray.
The affected branches practically never bear fruit, and the fruits hanging on them are characterized by very weak development, they often fall off prematurely, and two or three years later the branches themselves dry up.
Darkening of wood is considered another characteristic sign of a milky sheen - brownish specks are especially noticeable on cross sections. Such specks are located in isolated blotches closer to the core, and almost always around the circumference and interspersed with light areas of wood.
The main symptoms of milky shine appear starting in spring, but they are best noticeable already in summer, closer to its middle.
Infection of trees with such an unpleasant ailment occurs through the ingestion of mycelium or fungal spores on the damaged tree bark. Subsequently, the mycelium begins to spread through the tissues of branches, trunks and roots, while it never takes root in the leaves. Nevertheless, the poisonous substances secreted by the harmful mycelium through the conducting tissues also penetrate the leaves, destroying the median plates of the cell walls in them, which in turn provokes the formation of numerous air cavities that contribute to the acquisition of a milky sheen by the leaves.
Often, the manifestation of a milky sheen can be observed on trees affected by winter with various injuries and wounds on the bark. In frozen trees, water, as well as mineral salts dissolved in it, are always supplied in insufficient quantities.
How to fight
One of the most important measures in the fight against milky shine is to increase the winter hardiness of fruit trees. It is possible to increase their frost resistance by applying potash and phosphorus fertilizers. It has been repeatedly noted that when such fertilizers were applied, the trees affected by the milky sheen recovered quite quickly. It is necessary to water the trees with these means in the first half of the growing season, and in the second half of it, such watering completely stops.
When planting fruit trees, it is best to give preference to zoned varieties. Also, it is better not to plant them in highly humid and low-lying areas. If possible, you should also avoid the neighborhood of fruit trees growing on the site with poplars, which are real breeding grounds not only for milky shine, but also for a number of other equally destructive infections.
After frosty winters, you should give the trees high-quality fertilizing. And in the fall, skeletal twigs, like tree trunks, are whitewashed with lime, after sprinkling them with a solution of ferrous sulfate (3-5%). It is equally important to treat open wounds on the bark in a timely manner, disinfect them and cover them with garden varnish.
If, after all attempts to preserve fruit trees, leaf death continues on them, then all trees affected by the milky shine must be immediately uprooted and burned.
After cutting the trees, knives and secateurs must be thoroughly disinfected. It is also important to remember that during the dormant period before the start of flowering, as well as during the period of the onset of active growth, diseased shrubs with trees cannot be cut off. Plums with cherries are usually pruned immediately after harvest, and apple trees as soon as they have faded.
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