Mike Lyle wrote:
anton wrote:
wrote in message
...
anton wrote:
wrote in message
...
[snip]

The issue is silver leaf disease but there's no agreement on
when
to prune to avoid it. Some sites say don't prune in winter,
prune
in May, however other sites say almost the opposite. I found
one
site that said "To avoid silver leaf disease, prune young trees
in
winter, mid-December is a good time. For older trees, avoid
pruning in May and September to October." (What's 'young' and
'old'?)

It's:-



http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_...ch_2d_plum.asp

(watch for wrapping, if you don't use Mozilla/Firefox)

It specifically refers to silver leaf disease but gives the
months I
referred to above.


I've emailed them to ask who their plum expert is.

I'll be interested to know what they say. I've emailed them about
it,
too (as I think I said earlier today).

And I've had a prompt reply, as follows:
Quote/
Looking back at my article I think I haven't been too clear about
pruning plum trees. Silver Leaf disease is most liable to affect
young plum trees. The safest time to prune young trees is in
mid-winter - December. Silver leaf disease is most common in early
autumn and late spring (september and may roughly). December is the
safest month to prune all plum trees, but especially young ones which
are most vulnerable to this disease. So, you might well yake a chance
and prune an established tree in November with a good margin of
safety, but its best to wait another month before pruning a young
plum tree.
/Endquote.

Do we believe this?

Mike.