We have a Damson tree (Merryweather) in our garden which has a problem.

Some of the leaves have become very "scrunched up" like a screwed up piece
of paper and some of the fruits are turning yellow. Does anybody have an
idea of what it is and what can be done to help it.

TIA

--
Steve

Steve Rainbird wrote:

We have a Damson tree (Merryweather) in our garden which has a problem.

Some of the leaves have become very "scrunched up" like a screwed up piece
of paper and some of the fruits are turning yellow. Does anybody have an
idea of what it is and what can be done to help it.

Silver leaf disease. It's a fungus that affects the Prunus family.

http://www.agr.gc.ca/pfra/shelterbelt/shbpub44.htm

"Frank Booth Snr" wrote in message
...
Steve Rainbird wrote:

We have a Damson tree (Merryweather) in our garden which has a problem.

Some of the leaves have become very "scrunched up" like a screwed up
piece of paper and some of the fruits are turning yellow. Does anybody
have an idea of what it is and what can be done to help it.

Silver leaf disease. It's a fungus that affects the Prunus family.

http://www.agr.gc.ca/pfra/shelterbelt/shbpub44.htm



Thanks but I don't think its that if this is what that looks like.

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile...ilver_leaf.asp


--
Steve

Frank Booth Snr writes
Steve Rainbird wrote:

We have a Damson tree (Merryweather) in our garden which has a problem.
Some of the leaves have become very "scrunched up" like a screwed up
piece of paper and some of the fruits are turning yellow. Does
anybody have an idea of what it is and what can be done to help it.

Silver leaf disease. It's a fungus that affects the Prunus family.

Genus, not family ;-)
--
Kay

Steve
It is hard to day without seeing it but sounds like a plum leaf curl
aphid. It is a common pest that affects all plum - gages & damsons.
Picture on the RHS site at
http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile...plum_aphid.asp
Does it look anything like this?

Have recently seen sloes that were hard and shriveled looking like
they were dried last year - but inspection with a hand lens show the
presence of a small white / translucent spider - like a red spider
mite without the colour. Might be worth a look at the fruit

Regards

Clifford
Bawtry, Doncaster, UK

"cliff_the_gardener" wrote in message
oups.com...
Steve
It is hard to day without seeing it but sounds like a plum leaf curl
aphid. It is a common pest that affects all plum - gages & damsons.
Picture on the RHS site at
http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile...plum_aphid.asp
Does it look anything like this?

Have recently seen sloes that were hard and shriveled looking like
they were dried last year - but inspection with a hand lens show the
presence of a small white / translucent spider - like a red spider
mite without the colour. Might be worth a look at the fruit

Regards

Clifford
Bawtry, Doncaster, UK





Yep I think that's it.

Unfortunately the tree is only about 3 years old and it says

"Heavy attacks on a young tree can be more serious as the tree's growth can
be reduced. ".

We will have to wait and see what happens.

Thanks Clifford.



--
Steve

cliff_the_gardener wrote:

It is hard to day without seeing it but sounds like a plum leaf curl
aphid. It is a common pest that affects all plum - gages & damsons.
Picture on the RHS site at
http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile...plum_aphid.asp
Does it look anything like this?

I noticed my damson tree with similar symptoms this weekend.

Many leaves curled up with small colonies of creatures inside covered
with a white hairy layer.

From reading this thread I assumed it was plum leaf curl aphid, but it
looks much more like mealy plum aphid from this page:
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/C611/m611fpaphid.html
Certainly the leaves aren't nearly as curled as the picture on the
right, and the creatures were covered with a white layer.

But that is an American site. Do we have mealy plum aphids in the UK,
and do they commonly affect damsons?

Peter

Peter
With the caviat of not having seen the problem.
I am not familliar with mealy plum aphid.
Having checked Stefan Buczacki's Pest, Diseases & Disorders of garden
plants - he does list it. He states that the leaves are not deformed
by this pest, they exude a lot of honeydew resulting in sooty moulds
(as leaf curl aphid does later in the season) and that it does not
build up to damaging levels until mid summer.
If the leaves are curled then I would suggest it is plum leaf curl
aphid.
Regards
Clifford
Bawtry, Doncaster, South Yorkshire

cliff_the_gardener wrote:

With the caviat of not having seen the problem.
I am not familliar with mealy plum aphid.
Having checked Stefan Buczacki's Pest, Diseases & Disorders of garden
plants - he does list it. He states that the leaves are not deformed
by this pest, they exude a lot of honeydew resulting in sooty moulds
(as leaf curl aphid does later in the season) and that it does not
build up to damaging levels until mid summer.

Thank you for going to the trouble of looking it up, and apologies for
not replying earlier - there's always so much to do outside!

If the leaves are curled then I would suggest it is plum leaf curl
aphid.

It may well be, but happily it doesn't seem to have got much worse.
It's not affecting every leaf by any means, and even the worst leaves
don't seem to have more than a few dozen aphids. When I first saw them
I expected they would quickly multiply and become a serious problem.

In fact since about May I haven't been much troubled by aphids on
anything this year. I'm not sure whether it's the weather, the
ladybirds or my ministrations, but I'm hard pressed to find any blackfly
on my runner beans at all now, so I've mostly stopped bothering to
squish them. Plenty of ladybirds (adults and larvae) last time I
looked.

Peter