Is there any definitive way to identify anthracnose canker on an apple tree? I've read that in BC infected trees should simply be removed, but (although this matches - pretty much to the letter - all the info I've found on the disease) I don't want to jump the gun if I could be looking at something else instead. The attached pictures are of the my 3 or 4 year old apple. Last summer I thought my husband had scraped it with the lawn mower, but yesterday I noticed there are cankers all around, from top to bottom. When I remove the dried bark from over top, I find evidence wood bugs have been busy underneath. I've also read that the cankers can girdle a young tree - which seems a possibility here if the ones on the trunk expand any. I hesitate to try to remove the damage, as I think scraping back to undamaged wood likely would girdle the tree. Thanks for any advice or help with an id!
I would say to hurry up and leave it alone, pruning and other bark removal doesn't make the tree any healthier, it MAY make it less unhealthy. Let nature take its course, if its doomed it will show you in the next year or two.
What variety is your Apple? Are all pictures of the same tree? Is there any special reason you want to keep the tree?
Paul: While I can totally get on board with "wait & see" (the alternative smacks of work anyway), should I not worry that leaving it in for a couple more years might allow this to spread to neighboring trees? Sundrop: It's a gravenstein. Yes, pics are of the same tree - 3 of many, many cankers. And as for wanting to keep it, I'd just hate to kill anything unnecessarily. Thanks guys!
With such an extensive damage keeping the tree would only cause suffering to the tree and, very likely, to your neighbours trees, since cankers spread easily. If I were you I would cut the tree as soon as possible and burn, or safely dispose the wood, to prevent the disease from spreading. I would wait a year or longer before planting another apple tree. I have been thinking about your soil, too. Is it possible that there is something re. your soil causing the tree to be week and completely lacking resistance to the disease?
wf1992, is your apple tree in a shaded location? Years ago I planted a young apple tree right next to an older one that I wanted to replace, but I left them both growing until the new tree started to produce apples. The new tree developed a canker on the side facing the old tree. When I noticed this, I cut the old tree down; and after a few years the canker healed itself. I've never had any problems with that type of canker since then. The canker looked just like the one in your second photo before it started to heal.