Red Spots on both my nectarine and cherry tree...

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Hello all, this will be my first time posting to this forum. I'm new to the outdoor gardening and am realizing that I have allot to learn. I recently picked up these two fruit trees from my local nursery. One is a fantasy nectarine and the other is a 3 in 1 cherry tree.

The issue I'm noticing is that I started seeing red spots develop on my nectarine tree first or red dots initially. Then as the days went by I noticed it was spreading throughout the tree and now it seems like these red spots/dots have turned into little burn holes or something like that. Prior to all this I had noticed that every flower that was trying to bloom would quickly wilt off and brown until they just died and fell off. One of the photos I listed here shows the dried up flowers. They never really bloomed very well.

This tree is in a good size bucket with the standard drainage holes beneath, however being a newbie to all this I wasn't very good at determining when they required water or had enough. At one point I was watering them almost every day or every other day. I still haven't gotten the 'insert the finger' into the hole to check for moisture down yet. While this may be a simple test, for a first time beginner who has never stuck his finger in soil, this can be somewhat of a challenge to determine this. Heh.

I picked up one of them moisture testers which I been using and interestingly I noticed that when I insert my finger up-to the first bend, where previously I would think the soil was dried out, the soil is actually reading very moist using the moisture tester which does probe down deeper than my finger.

I know I read in some other sites were some other user was over watering and developed similar red spots on his nectarine tree.. Another observation I made prior to the development of the red dots/spots I would notice some of the leaves would look like there folded in half, like almost sticking together. This was mostly noticeable on new leaves growing out. Not sure if this was normal.

In any event, a few days after the nectarine developed this red spotting issue, I noticed my cherry tree which was also sitting in a bucket about 2 feet away started developing these red spots also mostly on the top leaves only as seen in the photo. The bottom leaves were looking OK.

It seems like now several days later there are some lower leaves on my cherry tree developing these same red spots also..

Not sure what I'm doing wrong if this is by any means something I did, perhaps due to infrequent watering methods... I thought I heard somewhere that infrequent or over watering may cause this.. I also began to suspect that maybe this may be some virus or diseases which I'm hoping not.

I'm in California and over the past few weeks we have had some extreme weather changes. A few days hit over 80 and then it got cold for a good week or so and then today we hit over 90s. The temps have been ridiculously up and down.

I have also noticed the soil in the nectarine tree bucket is like loaded with ants, which has been very annoying. The tree itself has no signs of aphids or scale or any bugs of any sort other than the ants. I actually wrapped some tape around the trunk today and applied some tanglefoot to keep the ants from climbing on the tree, however having them ants in the soil must not be a good thing.

But to be on the safe side, I picked up both organicide 3 in 1 insecticide and fungicide and have also applied serenade fungicide.

Here are the pics;

This is the nectarine tree, you can see the dieing blooms here....

[url=https://www.ephotobay.com/share/nectarine-tree.html][img]https://www.ephotobay.com/image/nectarine-tree.jpg[/img][/url]

Another shot showing the holes now which originated from the red spots...

[url=https://www.ephotobay.com/share/nectarine-tree2.html][img]https://www.ephotobay.com/image/nectarine-tree2.jpg[/img][/url]

Some leaves have actually begun to fall off and are laying on the top of the mulch in the soil, you can also notice the folding of the leaves as I mentioned.

[url=https://www.ephotobay.com/share/nectarine-tree3.html][img]https://www.ephotobay.com/image/nectarine-tree3.jpg[/img][/url]

Some of the lower leaves here have yellowed a bit and you can see the folding of some leaves...

[url=https://www.ephotobay.com/share/nectarine-tree4.html][img]https://www.ephotobay.com/image/nectarine-tree4.jpg[/img][/url]

This next two images are from my cherry tree, you'll notice how it's developing the red dots as I mentioned. This was the same way the peaches started out looking.

[url=https://www.ephotobay.com/share/cherry-tree.html][img]https://www.ephotobay.com/image/cherry-tree.jpg[/img][/url]

And yet another view showing a spotted leaf, you'll also notice how the leaves below look fine. That was a few days ago though, this has since spread to some lower leaves now...

[url=https://www.ephotobay.com/share/cherry-tree2.html][img]https://www.ephotobay.com/image/cherry-tree2.jpg[/img][/url]

Hoping some knowledgeable users and or staff from here can help identify what the issue might be and provide possible solution. I'm so distressed over this.. Thanks in advance...

[JONA878]

Hi HF.
Copy and paste this address for your info on this problem.

' Management and control of leaf spot on peaches and nectarines.'

Plenty of help there.

[half-full]

Hi Jona878 and thanks for your update. Were you posting a link? I didn't see any address. Or where you saying to copy the words in the quotes and do a google search or search on this site?

I'm sorry, I didn't fully understand what you were suggesting? Please let me know.. Does this look like irregular watering issue or some sort of diseases?

Thanks for any help..

Richard S.

[JONA878]

Hi Richard.....sorry I didn't explain myself very well.
I think you may have a problem on your tree that is bacterial.
If I am correct it is Bacterial Spot of peaches and nectarines, Apparently a fairly common problem over there in the States.

Below is some of the text that I found from the Univesity of Michigan on it.






Bacterial spot is a difficult disease to control when environmental conditions favor pathogen spread. As with all bacterial plant diseases, there are relatively few bactericide chemicals available for use. Compounds available for use on peach and nectarine for bacterial spot include copper, oxytetracycline (Mycoshield and generic equivalents), and syllit+captan; however, repeated applications are typically necessary for even minimal disease control.

Oxytetracycline is generally considered the most effective compound and the least prone to phytotoxicity problems (damage to plant tissue), but also perhaps most likely to lose effectiveness with the appearance of bacterial strains with resistance. There is some evidence that the hydrochloride form of oxytetracycline (Fireline) is more effective than the calcium form Mycoshield.


Syllit+captan is used as a moderately effective alternative to oxytetracycline, but with some risk of phytotoxicity if used repeatedly without intervening rains. We avoid the use of spray additives such as foliar nutrients, and any surfactants with penetrating characteristics when applying syllit + captan.

Check out their site for more info.
Hope that helps a little.
John

[rainbowgardener]

Here's the link to that article:

https://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/management_of_bacterial_spot_on_peaches_and_nectarines/

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thanks for the updates and providing me with that link. That was an interesting article. I really appreciate the help. Been doing some reading on the hole shot disease and it sounds like this may be the problem. I also came across leaf spot disease on cherries which seems very similar to the shot hole. They both start off with those small reddish dots then shortly after the red dots seem to turn brown/die and fall out leaving them holes...

Sounds like copper is helpful in controlling this. Can this be successfully cured using these type of fungicides?

I came across this product by Bonide.... Does this look like a good product to use to try and combat this issue?

https://www.amazon.com/Bonide-811-Liquid-Copper-Pint/dp/B000LNXY22/ref=pd_sim_sbs_lg_1

It looks like this particular product is safe to use now in attempt to control this and then later in the fall I can apply a Bordeaux fungicide.

Does this sounds like a good approach on this or is there any other better suggested methods that I may try?

Thanks for all the help and any other thoughts or suggestions on this issues...

Richard S.

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Oh, forgot to ask... would it be a good idea if I snipped off the leaves that have the red spots on my cherry tree.. You can see from the last two photos I posted which show the red dots. It's been about a week now and it doesn't seem to have spread much yet. It's still only on the top part of that tree. Not seeing much on the bottom..

My thought was that if this is a leaf spot disease it may be good to remove the diseased leaves before they spread to other leaves? Would this be a good thing to do?

Thanks again..
Richard S.

[JONA878]

Hi Richard

Providing you don't have to remove too many leaves it would be a good idea to remove those that are badly infected.
Like all fungus it needs to sporilate to increase in numbers and those spots are the sites were the fruiting spores will come from.

Bordeaux Mixture is a good old tried and tested fungicide that has good results on protection against spores.
As you say...copper seems to be one of the very few chemicals that has any effect on bacterial problems.
Just be carefull if you use more potent mixes that you don't overdose.
That's why the old Copper Sulphate mix ( Bordeaux) was so much safer.