Does anyone have any idea what this rather disgusting looking thing might be?At first I thought some sort of extraordinarily agile cat, or perhaps an inordinately large crow, had pooped on our Schubert Chokecherry tree, but this stuff is definitely not poop. Could it be some kind of fungus? The portion of the branch on either side of this thing is enlarged about 30-50% for about two inches. There are three of these things on our tree, which until now has been really healthy. And I'm sure these things weren't there in the Fall, but what kind of...uh, growth, grows over the Winter? We picked at it a bit and there are no eggs in there, it is just solid brown material all the way through.
I'm trying to decide if I should cut off the branches where these things are located, or try to pick it off as best I can, or what? Suggestions welcome!
Update: One of my twitter people quickly identified the problem as Black Knot Disease, which seems to be getting quite bad here in the prairies. Looks like I've got some surgical pruning to do...
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7 comments:
Cripes, things that seem to be "getting quite bad" is becoming far too prevalent a theme...
Oh, hope you can get rid of it!!!
Jerry - you've got that right! Something's got to start turning around for the better soon....right?
Amy - thanks, me too! Apparently I have to prune back a foot toward the trunk and sterilize my pruners with bleach or alcohol after each cut. Then either burn or bury the cut branches! I can't burn them, because there is a fire ban in our county due to extreme dryness. So I guess I will find somewhere to bury them, far away from any fruit bearing tree or bush.
Wow, what an adventure! I wonder how the disease works, whether it's a recent disease or whether it's been around for awhile. I know in Murphy, NC, where we'll be moving to in August, there's a crawling vine called kudzu that's suffocates any and all wildlife; I just hope it doesn't come anywhere near where we plan to build our yurt! Good luck!
Hi Juliana - I've heard of the kudzu vine - it sounds strange and amazing at the same time! I also hope it stays away from your yurt!
I don't know much about this black knot disease as yet, but as the climate changes I'm sure there will be more and more of these things happenning. We've had drought conditions here for several years now, so the poor trees are susceptible to a lot more problems, unfortunately.
Thanks for the useful info. Ths fungus is slowly destroying my forest at the cottage. You're right,it seems to be becoming a very noticeable problem on the prairies!
Black Knot!
Highly Contagious and it will kill the tree eventually. I have been fighting it for several years on my tree. You want to carefully trim and remove this stuff and burn it.
http://www.mortonarb.org/tree-plant-advice/article/731/black-knot-of-ornamental-cherry-and-plum.html
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