[rwhittington]

Hi,

We bought our house in the north of Spain 2 years ago, and now we're having a bit of a problem with the fruit trees we've inherited.

A number of our neighbours have told us that a few of our apple and peach trees are infected with the same disease, and we need to get rid of them quickly. I've taken a couple down as instructed (these people have been growing these trees for generations, so I trust their views). My problem is that I'm not sure what the disease is, and what its early symptoms are, as I'd like to be aware of these before the disease kills any more in the future.

One thing I've noticed, is that the trees display the same problem, they're dead, but they have this "blossom", of a green, waxy leaves, which appears only once per tree, and these are what the neighbours point to as proof of infection.

Here's a photo of the "blossom" from one of the trees I removed:



Can any of you help identify this? A few of our other trees have similar problems, and before I tear everything down, I'd like to be sure that it's definitely a problem.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Ice]

Can you post a bigger picture?  It's a bit hard to see.

[Nikkithefoot]

? Peach leaf curl? Do they have blotchy bits as well? Are there any normal leaves growing?

[rwhittington]

Can you post a bigger picture?  It's a bit hard to see.

Hi Ice, the picture in my gallery is pretty large, I don't know why it's so small in the post. Here's a direct link to the photo:http://chat.allotment-garden.org/gallery/18604_22_04_12_11_06_57.jpeg, does that help? This is the "bloom" that all the trees have produced, our neighbours said that if we didn't remove them then birds would take the seeds from these and infect other trees.

Nikki, I don't think it's peach leaf curl, unless I've missed the early stages. The trees are pretty bare (though some did have slight budding when I took them down). I remember that the few peaches we had did have black blotches on them last year; I can't say anything about the apples, as the trees have not produced anything during our time here.

[Ice]

That looks like mistletoe.

[Nikkithefoot]

From that photo it looks like mistletoe. Is it in clumps? Is there any normal budding of the trees or blossom?

You can try snapping a small twig to see if the tree is actually dead.

[Trillium]

I'm not sure what it is either. But this is a pdf document co-written by a researcher in Spain about common fruit tree diseases Here.

There are some good pix and you might spot what is close to your problem.

[Ice]

I'm 99% sure it's mistletoe which isn't an infection but a partially parasitic plant that grows from a seed and takes some nutrients from the tree, it also gives a little back.  It will eventually weaken the tree but rather than lose it, just remove the mistletoe.