help my flowering cherry some brown branches and leaking sap like goo on main trunk

Discussion in 'Ornamental Cherries' started by crogan0899, Jun 8, 2010.

  1. crogan0899

    crogan0899 Member

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    6 yr old weeping cherry is so admired for doing and growing well this spring. Its at least 11 ft tall,trunk at least 6"inches in diameter. Just 2 weeks ago notice some brown leaves on a few branches (grouped on one side)branches are still plyable,but all brown leaves on those branches. Bleeding from main trunk a sap-like substance,thick and amber in color. Is there anything my husband and I can do to help ? We watered since a 2 week dry spell thinking that would help.Northeast Pennsylvania region.
     
  2. dt-van

    dt-van Active Member 10 Years

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    Re: help my flowering cherry some brown branches and leaking sap like goo on main tru

    Sounds like Bacterial Canker. It can be a serious problem, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Did you have an unusually mild winter or wet spring?

    It can be controlled at least somewhat with copper spray. Check out the website below for more info. but don't despair too much. We have a large 30 yr old white flowering cherry which has been infected for at least 8 years and while it isn't as attractive as it was, it is still a basically good looking tree which flowers very nicely each spring. The first signs we noticed were a lot of gummy brown jelly seeping from the trunk, some branch tips (3-6 leaves) turning brown, and small holes in some other leaves. We sprayed it with copper a couple of times, but haven't done anything for at least 5 years except to try to avoid composting the leaves in fall and the dropped flowers in spring. I haven't noticed much jelly recently, but we still get quite a few brown shoot tips and some leaves with holes.

    The other problem which may be related is that the flowers tend to fall in a soggy clot with all their petals intact rather than having the petals fall off individually and blow away as they used to. This means that they stick to the Hostas and Rhododendrons below and have to be picked off regularly so the plants underneath don't develop dead patches. We had the tree pruned to improve air circulation, but otherwise I've decided to just live with it for now as the tree is just too big to spray. Since your tree is small you may be able to spray for a couple of years and get rid of the problem, especially if you have drier weather.

    http://plant-disease.ippc.orst.edu/disease.cfm?RecordID=307
     

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