What's this ??

[drmacf]

Good morning,

Hope all is well, I know it's a Moanday, so bear with me

I bought a house in 2022 and inherited a Granny apple tree with it. Cut most of it's branches and grafter them with red apple grafts in the winter of 2023. Theses have taken up well and flourished, now in their second year

I did drill some of the bark, to try and get the grafts, such as lateral grafts

Just notice the left side of the tree now has some fungi??
Googled it and it seems like it only grows on dead wood and means the tree would eventually die??

See pics enclosed within

Please do advise

Mel

[drmacf]

Took a wire brush and scrubbed the tree. The underlying wood smelt musty and damp, couldn't see any cambium. Is it bad ??

[applestar]

I don’t know too much about it so hopefully others with more experience will contribute.

But I wanted to ask — are there active growths above where the fungi are growing? I can see the (presumably) grafted branch growing from the cut branch collar in the foreground.

Just intuitively, it seems like best to cut above that collar and promote the grafted branch?


…IF there are any growths at all above the affected portion on the trunk to the left, presumably there are intact bark/cambium and the entire thing is not girdled.

But to my merely book-knowledge inexperience, the thing to attempt is to cleanly chisel/carve out the fungus-permeated deadwood and see if the tree can be brought back to healthy wood. If this thing has penetrated to the core, it seems to me it might be better to cut the dying part off BEFORE the rot spreads down to or even *below* where you won’t be able to save the grafted new and healthy growth.

Hope it can be saved.

[drmacf]

The grafts are healthy, beyond this fungal infestation
I could chop of this branch, if it means saving the tree
Please do advise

Mel

[applestar]

Again, I really don’t want to be the last word here, but the fungi will try to improve and increase viable environment for THEM which is to say moist and dead, and if the tree’s defenses are down or compromised to the point that the fungi are fruiting — I.e. enough mycelia growth INSIDE the deadwood for producing mushrooms and spores, and spreading.

There doesn’t seem to be any point in keeping the dead part of the tree. It seems to me that would just be invitation for bugs and fungi to move in?

You used wire brush you said, but I think you’d need to perform surgery to cut or whittle so that all the punky wood is eliminated down to hopefully healthy, visually healthy wood and then probably use something to clean and kill off the colonized fungal growths at minimum. If able, I would imagine the tree would then form some kind of callous/scab.

I’m supposing that there might be product that could potentially kill off the organisms and preserve but I don’t know how healthy that would be for the tree?

There are different opinions on whether to use wound paint/sealer when you cut a large branch and I think that argument will apply here as well. Those products generally contain anti-fungal/bacterial and insecticidal, as well as some kind of sealant….

Hmmm…. maybe show more pics of how the healthy grafts are getting nutrients via whatever section is alive on the other side of the fungal patch. Extent of the damage, etc.

[drmacf]

Thanks, Mod
Would take a mini chain saw and clear those woody bits
Then apply that sealant paint

The grafts beyond(away from the trunk) the fungal infestation are growing well
Could I air layer them?
As I presume the bottom branch(closer to the trunk or bifurcation) will eventually rot, killing of nutrition and supply to the grafts beyond?

I am willing to sacrifice this tree trunk, the other one has prize grafts ans would be a shame if the rot spreads to them too

Mel