Yesterday, I was removing some bradford pears that had gotten into my main front garden and I noticed my Halls Hardey almond was badly oozing sap. Can anyone please tell me what I should do. Things I noticed, there were hundreds of ants in the area right around my tree. I have noticed them in the past, but I tried not to spray as much as possible, because we eat the almonds on the tree. Since the late April frost we had this year killed all of my buds, we have no fruit this year so I went ahead and sprayed them with Ortho Home Defense as I was removing the bradfords. We have hard a lot of black beetles this year, but I did not noticed them in the area of the tree. The sap was more of a jelly than a sap. I have attached photos of the sap on different areas of my tree. The 1st two are of the same area. Thank you.
'Hall's is a hybrid almond, that is it belongs to Prunus x persicoides - the cross between the almond tree and the peach tree. Like its parent species -and various other stone fruits - it is an early-blooming tree that is subject to late frost, as well as an assortment of pest and disease problems. The condition you are seeing is called "gummosis", and has multiple possible causes. Try searching that term for information that may help you assess the situation.
Thank you for the condition name. I knew it was a hybrid, it is now import banned in my state without certification, because of a peach disease in our border states.
Well after research, it looks like this tree is a goner. It is a shame too, because it was very pleasant on the eyes and the almonds were eatable. I am going to dig this out, would it be unwise to prune off a branch to try and regrow in my house?
Not likely to develop into a new tree. I have also found the seeds of plants grown as this cultivar to be palatable raw, yet it is said to produce bitter nuts (due to the peach parentage) that have to be processed before eating.
