Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: rowbow on May 20, 2018, 19:13
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Hi have a greengage plum tree and the buds have not broken out yet, on some of the branches its excluding a brown liquid, anyone any ideas :unsure:
John
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There could be several reasons for the brown liquid, which I assume is sticky? The best of the bunch would be aphid damage, such as woolly aphid, but you'd be able to see them.
Environmental stress is a possibility, but given that my small greengage tree is in leaf now and fruit has set, I would guess yours may have some form of serious canker or bacterial disease.
Do you have a photo at all?
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My Hessayon book describes it as Gummosis which can occur after freezing weather. As the stems are oozing brown gum it has now developed into bacterial canker. There is no treatment but he says you can give it a good feed to help it to survive. I suggest using a pair of sharpened secateurs or small sharp pruning saw to remove all the poorly stems back to healthy wood (if any) then treating the cut with Arbrex or similar to seal them (someone else may know a good product) but it's important to wear gloves and to sterilise your blades after use so you don't spread the bacteria etc onto anything else. As gum is sticky, then try alcohol or meths.