I am seeing the same strange behavior every year with a cherry tree that is ~8 years old. Here's what happens:
1) In early spring the branches are all alive and full of buds which all progress to healthy blossoms.
2) A few weeks after blossoming, the petals fall off normally and leaves begin to emerge.
3) Most branches never develop full leaves along their length, just at the tips of the branch. Most of the blossoms (~90%) do not produce any fruit at all. The remaining fruit is mostly weak with a few healthy cherries. Some branches completely wither and die.
Here are some pictures to illustrate what is happening:
https://goo.gl/photos/TbWSSe4saoi2ysYt6
The tree limps along and seems to do OK over the summer, except for some slug-like grubs that attack. Last year I manually cleaned them off and the tree seemed to do a lot better with more healthy leaves and branches, but after blossoming, the same problem.
As you can see from the pictures, the back yard is somewhat shaded, but the tree gets 3-4 hours of direct sun each day (when it isn't cloudy - I'm in the pacific northwest). Would this cause my tree to be unhealthy?
Any ideas what is going on?
Jona, thanks for the reply; that's an interesting thought. Any idea why this presents differently on my tree? For instance the leaves on my tree don't turn yellow. And the effect on the tree is universal instead of just parts of the tree and it does the exact same thing every year.JONA wrote:Hi nebosite,
These are the classic symptoms of verticillium wilt.
. I would not expect your tree to have kept going if it had bacterial canker which also produces these effects in its early stages.
If it is verticillium all you can do is keep removing dead and damaged wood ..... and hope.
Sorry!
This is the weird thing about this disease.( if it is verticillium.)
It gives a whole range of symptoms.
Branches can seem to wilt as the season progresses only to recover and produce clean leaf.
Other ones completely die and need to be removed.
Trees can go on for years with recovery and resurgence.
A tell tale sign is in the branches that are effected if you remove them there will be a dark brown ring just under the bark in the cambium layer..very similar to canker.
Being a soil born pathogen there is very little you can actually do to treat the tree other then removal of badly infected wood.
Eventually if you have to remove the tree make sure that anything that you replace it with has resistance to verticillium wilt..
It gives a whole range of symptoms.
Branches can seem to wilt as the season progresses only to recover and produce clean leaf.
Other ones completely die and need to be removed.
Trees can go on for years with recovery and resurgence.
A tell tale sign is in the branches that are effected if you remove them there will be a dark brown ring just under the bark in the cambium layer..very similar to canker.
Being a soil born pathogen there is very little you can actually do to treat the tree other then removal of badly infected wood.
Eventually if you have to remove the tree make sure that anything that you replace it with has resistance to verticillium wilt..