How to Identify and Treat Apple Blotch Fungus: A Comprehensive Guide for Healthy Trees

Preventing Apple Tree Diseases: Expert Tips on Controlling Apple Blotch Fungus

One of the best things your garden can offer is apples from your own tree. If the apples at the market seem a little less magnificent than yours, what should you do? Continue reading to find out more about the various treatments for the apple blotch fungus disease.

Apple Blotch Fungus: What Is It?

Apples make stunning standalone plants in the landscape as well as lovely additions to a home orchard. But cultivating apples is more difficult than cultivating other hardy perennials. You should give your apples careful attention all year long if you want them to flourish and yield a large crop. A common issue for both apple growers and homeowners is the apple blotch fungus disease. Many different fungi can cause blotch fungus on apples, which is a common disease that occurs during the fruiting season. Thankfully, the issue only affects the apple’s outer layer. Additionally, unless you have a mold allergy, it’s safe to eat, so for many homeowners, treating apple blotch fungus disease may not be necessary. Others may feel that a treatment level somewhere in between none and protection comparable to an orchard is more appropriate.

The symptoms of apple blotch typically appear as irregular, quarter-inch (6 mm) or larger areas on the surface of the infected fruits.

The apple’s surface frequently looks olive green due to the sooty or cloudy color. Smaller regions of the skin frequently combine to form larger, non-circular spots. In addition to the sooty blotches, a related fungal disease called “flyspeck” can occasionally coexist with apple blotch fungus disease. Flyspeck causes small, raised black spots to appear on the skin.

Handling Fungus in Apple Blotch

After a vigorous skin rub, fruits can usually be eaten if the blotch is minimal and the fruit looks acceptable. Removing the entire skin for baking or juicing will also remove the need to target the fungus on your trees with extra care. If more is desired from gardeners, they can eliminate neighboring bramble patches, which can aid in eliminating common apple blotch fungus vectors. Since opening up the canopy means lowering internal humidity for your apple fruits, pruning your trees aggressively in the winter can also be very beneficial. If you decide to spray the fruits later, a good annual prune also provides you with better access to the fruits. If growers are looking for more manual control techniques, they might start by keeping a close eye on their fruits in the spring.

Once the apple flower petals fall and the fertilized fruits start to enlarge, infection can manifest itself at any point. Thin any blotches you find on the fruit while they’re still small to stop the spread of the fungal infection. Apple blotch and other pathogens will be deterred and larger fruit development will be encouraged if your apples are thinned properly. You have a few options when treating apple tree fungus becomes essential. As soon as the apple blossoms start to drop, you can apply a fungicide cover spray. Then, you can start timing how many hours your tree’s leaves are wet from rain or dew.

Apply a second cover spray at 175 hours, and for the duration of the growing season, apply a protective fungicide every 10 to 14 days. In orchard environments, thiophanate-methyl fungicides combined with a contact fungicide, such as captan, have proven to be very successful; however, homeowners can get good protection by spraying kresoxim methyl or trifloxystrobin in succession with thiophanate-methyl. Sulfur spray and other natural fungicides are ineffective against apple blotch fungus.