How To Recognize Apricot Diseases?

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

At first glance, it may seem that growing apricots is not at all troublesome. A tree grows for itself, blooms, bears fruit. However, everything is not so simple - apricots, like many other stone fruits, are periodically attacked by various ailments, and often you have to literally win back the long-awaited harvest of juicy fruits. What are apricots sick with, and how to recognize their main ailments?

Moniliosis

Fruit trees attacked by moniliosis look as if burnt. First, the harmful attack affects the flowers, which instantly wither, and then the destructive mushroom spores move to the shoots with leaves. And thick branches gradually crack and dry out quickly.

Moniliosis is especially harmful if apricot flowering occurs in cool and rainy weather.

Valsa mushroom

This disease usually develops when an infection enters open wood wounds. Its external manifestations cannot be confused with any other ailment - orange growths resembling sores appear on infected trees.

Ring pox

In the spring, before the heat hits, the first symptoms of this devastating disease can be seen on the apricot leaves. The shoots affected by it are characterized by extremely slow growth, the branches of fruit trees gradually dry out, and the leaves develop very small, often with a distorted shape. On ripening fruits, you can often see characteristic swellings that look like rings and spots of a red-brown color. In most cases, affected apricots fall off prematurely.

Clasterosporium disease

This fancy name hides a fairly common perforated spot. It manifests itself mainly on apricot leaves - the formation of countless brownish specks begins on them, often leading to the loss of leaf tissues. The result of such processes are numerous through holes on the leaves.

As for the shoots, they gradually become covered with round spots, which after a while crack and begin to secrete gum. All the affected areas at the same time look pretty ugly.

The causative agent of perforated spotting is a harmful fungus that overwinters inside fruit trees and begins to actively multiply when warm weather is established.

Verticillosis

The leaves in the lower parts of the trees affected by verticillosis begin to turn yellow, while the leaves located at the tops continue to remain green. On the tree bark, there are usually no visible signs of the disease.

The fungus-causative agent of verticillosis is concentrated in the conducting vessels of apricot trees, actively accumulating in leaf veins and petioles. Most often, young trees are affected by verticillosis.

Tape mosaic

This attack manifests itself on blossoming leaves in the spring. Along the veins on healthy leaves, characteristic yellowish stripes bordering on tissues not affected by the disease are formed. And after some time, rather nice "lace" patterns appear on the affected areas, leading to the rapid death of tissues.

Viral wilting

When affected by viral wilting, you can observe the appearance of new young leaves simultaneously with flowering. The leaves are abundantly covered with light green spots, while the leaf blades curl and noticeably thicken.

The fruit pulp located around the seeds turns brown and after a while dies off. And the causative agent of this disease is transmitted mainly during vaccination and budding.

Bacterial spot

Watery dark spots of relatively small size begin to appear on apricot leaves. After a while, they become angular, and then turn yellow and dry out quickly. And on juicy fruits, the disease manifests itself in the form of numerous dark specks, gradually turning brown and increasing in size.