Hello,
I recently returned from a year of military duty and found my poor neglected fledgling orchard in southwest Ohio has been seriously afflicted by some type of a problem other than the expected deer damage and mouse girdling. I was gone all last year, so the trees got no care whatsoever during that time. Hopefully this is a common problem (and therefore will have a well known solution), but I have not had any luck in identifying it. I work and getting to the county extension office would be a bit of a pain, so I thought the experts in this forum could probably identify my issue with a glance. The problem affects many types of trees and is very widespread. The symptoms are that the bark on the smaller branches and twigs appears to be 'split', for a few to up to 16 or so inches in length. Affected branches are mostly under about a half inch in diameter. There are actually wood fibers protruding from the areas of split bark. The bark has grown up around the split, indicating the problem probably occurred in the spring and the branch continued to grow at a normal or nearly normal rate. The problem seems to be affected by the sun as all the splits are on the undersides or on the north sides of the branches. In my orchard nearly 100% of my 30 or so trees are affected, including apple, plum, pear, peach, birch, and cherry. Curiously I have one north star cherry which does not appear to have the problem. Maple and birch trees are also affected along with some of the native brush I cannot give the proper name for. Nut trees, cedars, Osage (hedgewood), cottonwood, and sycamore do not appear to be affected. I cannot find any evidence of insect damage, and the fact that the problem appears on the shaded side of the branch leads me to suspect some type of fungal rot, but I would like to pinpoint the exact type if possible.
Check out some pictures at
Thanks in advance for your help.
Brian