Hello all advice would be appreciated. I have what I believe to be an Acer "bloodgood" looks quite healthy considering I live in the North East of England. The photo I have pissed concerns me, had my plant some form of disease ?? Thanks John
Hello, On the photo you have posted, I can see a lower part that looks infected by something, and the upper part with a different bark colour. There's also this shoot on the left: does it bear the same leaves as the rest of the tree? Because that looks as if the rootstock was sick and the rest of the tree healthy - very unusual. Though it isn't very clear on the photo, they look a bit like bumps: some kind of mushroom? Scale-like pests? Have you tried to remove them?
Thank you for taking time to reply. I'm no Gardener but I do love my Acer's. Yes I can remove them, they tend to turn into a fine powder when rubbed off I was just a bit lost on what it was AND what I should do.
Yes those are scale, can't remember exactly what they're called. I rubbed off a bunch of them from a maple just today. They're very nasty and sticky, but they do come off. Earlier in the year, before they do the foamy/furry thing, they're very hard to see, but I did manage to remove them from a few seedlings. I never had these before a couple of years ago, I guess they came in on a plant. Quite a pest but manual control seems to work. I wiped really a lot of them off of a fairly large 'Shin Chisio' in the ground, and this particular maple doesn't seem to have them again this year. The white stuff will only expand and get nastier, so get them off quickly. A wipe with some kind of alcohol wouldn't be amiss.
The white cotton stuff are the eggs usually anywhere from 500 to 2,000! Additional info: Scale Insect Control | Garden Pests | GardenForum Horticulture Cottony Maple Scale and Its Management
The scale insects, females have the white around them, which are eggs. The female scale dies and the eggs are protected by the hard outer exoskeleton. The white eggs become next year's scales or depending on the life cycle they may come back this fall.