Fruit Tree Fungus

            For those of you with fruit trees now is your best shot at diminishing fungus problems for next year.

            All those leaves that were infected with fungus are now lying on the ground around the very trees they infected. If you rake them up and burn, or discard, them now you will eliminate the spores attached to them from kicking up into the tree this coming spring.

 

            A spore is the seed left behind after the fungus has done its job on your fruit tree leaves. It doesn’t die, it just lays there until the spring winds pick it up and give it a boost into the trees from which they fell. So, getting rid of these Typhoid Mary leaves now gets rid of a lot of the fungus that wishes to reproduce itself on next year’s leaves.

            But your job is not quite done yet. Some of the spores fell off when the leaves hit the ground; some got knock off when you went at them vigorously with your rake. Little time bombs strewn about with time-delay fuses set by the winter’s cold. Spraying the ground around your trees with a fungicide will help kill a good number of these spores. Doing it again in the spring may polish off the rest.

            If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at NiemeyerLandscaping@Gmail.com or post a comment on this Blog. And like us on Facebook.