[sweet nasturtium]

I have a lovely fairly young apple tree in my garden.  It provides around 8 boxes of apples every other year.  It is one of the tall slim ones.  But it has kind of bulbous growths down the trunk, dimply.  I thought it might be canker but there's no hole in it like I've seen on the canker pics.

Any ideas?

[gobs]

Any chance it just place where old brunches were cut off?

Send a piccie.  someone will know

[paintedlady]

is it possibly the rootstock and grafting? :?

[richyrich7]

You could try this LINK some good illustrations of tree fruit disease's worth bookmarking IMHO.

[gobs]

good site

Gets you scared though, oh what my tree has?!

[richyrich7]

good site

Gets you scared though, oh what my tree has?!

   as bad as them online doctor things  

[sweet nasturtium]

Sorry no pics due to "technical difficulties that cannot be resumed until the IT manager gets home from work".

I've had a closer look and it is globe shaped crusty blisters.  They are largest where they are oldest and have merged at the lowest part of the trunk (8 inches or so).  They seem to be at the joints.  There are new ones (half an inch) emerging as crusty bumps the higher you go up the tree the smaller they are.  The bigger ones are crumbly.  

It doesn't look good.  It seems to have got really bad over the past 2 years.  The tree doesn't get any sun on the trunk (it's near the fence) and I guess that may have something to do with it.

[sweet nasturtium]

Anyone got any ideas?  The poor tree has lumps all over it.

[richyrich7]

Bit of a loss to be honest sweet n'  

How about this description from  "Gloucestershire Orchard group"

CANKER
    - is different from bacterial canker and affects most tree fruits, but most often apples and pears. Caused by wind-borne fungus invading natural openings or scars left by fallen leaf stalks and pruning. Sunken lesions appear on branches or main stems, surrounded by cracked or corky bark. If it surrounds the stem the branch will die. Prune and burn all branches. Affected larger branches can have affected wood scraped away with a sharp knife, removing all parings. Paint wounds with a fungicidal paint. Canker is more likely on heavy soils where drainage is poor. Avoid crossed branches that rub - damaged bark facilitates entry of the fungus. The routine treatment where the disease is suspected is to spray with a systemic fungicide,

[sweet nasturtium]

Oooh I think you're onto something there Richy!  My gut feeling is to scrape it off or cut it out where possible and then protect the scars.

[penance]

Hi,

Any bactreial infection is bad for trees. If you can confirm it is bacterial canker then, yes, you need to remove any infected wood. Also remove any wood that the ooze has landed on (if it is oozing).

Don't protect the wounds, thats an old ideal that went out with the ark.
Modern aboriculture accepts that covering the wounds is more harm than good, it serves to seal in any disease and also stops visible notification of infection.

[nipper31]

I inherited an old apple tree on my plot, taken last September 2007. It's not a healthy tree, lots of corky looking bark which is split in places and knobbly patches that I'm guessing is canker. Seriously thinking of having it chopped down or does anyone think it's worth saving?
Jan

[sweet nasturtium]

I couldn't chop mine down as it have me humungous amounts of lovely apples year before last, they kept through to the following spring and were really juicy.

[Annie]

we inherited and old apple tree with bad canker(if you choose a small branch with canker and cut through the canker you will see if it is dead through the middle).We cut out small branches and others as we could to open the tree up.8 years later it crops heavily every year instead of biennially,it still has canker and a little coral spot but don`t give in on yours as it can go on for years like this

[sweet nasturtium]

Thanks Annie, it seems all the literature I read says extreme things like "cut it out and burn it", which would mean cutting the tree down to the stump.  

I assume the tree only fruits biennially because it's young and it's one of those tall-growing varieties (rather than spreading out wide - we have a tiny garden).

I still haven't found out exactly what it is though.