Silver leaf disease on plum tree
Alison 2
Posts: 2
I am hoping someone can advise me please re plum tree with silver leaf disease. We moved here Jan 2014 and inherited said plum tree (variety unknown). We had a good crop of ok-ish plums last year. At the end of the year, (not sure when exactly) we trimmed a couple of lower branches just so we could walk underneath comfortably. Clearly, we got it wrong and this year it's not happy at all. Will it recover? What do we do? At the end of 2014 I planted a young apple tree and am sure it needs a bit of pruning. Is it also susceptible to silver leaf disease? When is the best time to prune it for future health and happiness?
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Posts
Silver leaf is usually fatal unfortunately. All you can do is leave it and it will either die or not. Apples are not affected and the correct time to prune young apple trees is when they are dormant. I usually do mine in December. It's important to prune young fruit trees properly to establish a good shape. Have a look at the RHS pruning advice, here:
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=164
OK. Thank you Bob for your advice.
It may be worth remembering for future reference, that plum trees should be pruned in June, pruning them when they are dormant will result in the fungus spoors entering the open cuts.