I have two very productive quince trees, however a large proportion of
the fruit is affected by a "problem". The skin has largish numbers of
tiny black / grey dots and when you cut (hack!) the fruit open the
inside is heavily veined with brown to such an extent that 50%+ of the
fruit mass is brown and because it's veined that makes 100% of the fruit
mass useless.

Does anyone recognise this condition and can anyone put a name to it?
And ideally of course, I'd like to know what I can do to prevent it in
future.

Many thanks

Merl

Merlin wrote:
I have two very productive quince trees, however a large proportion of
the fruit is affected by a "problem". The skin has largish numbers of
tiny black / grey dots and when you cut (hack!) the fruit open the
inside is heavily veined with brown to such an extent that 50%+ of the
fruit mass is brown and because it's veined that makes 100% of the fruit
mass useless.
Does anyone recognise this condition and can anyone put a name to it?
And ideally of course, I'd like to know what I can do to prevent it in
future.

How are the leaves and branches? Do you have black dots on the leaves
too? Or are they red? You might have Monilinia fructicolia (fruit rot).
Are the trees shadowed by a larger tree?

Couple of checks, sorry if this insults your intelligence:
1) You have Cydonia (true quince - looks like a pear tree, with pinkish white flowers in May) not Chaenomeles (Japanese "quince" - thorny shrub with brightly coloured flowers, usually red but other colours available, in late winter/early spring)
2) You picked the fruit before the serious frosts

Both the quince tree at my previous garden (Vranja) and my present one (Meech's Prolific) have a tendency to produce fruit with some light brown marbling in the flesh, usually in stripes at an angle to the internal stem, and not extending all the way to the skin. I find that this does not affect the cooking quality, and cooking the flesh in lemon juice and water the browning goes by the time the flesh is fully cooked. But I also find that any damage to the fruit, insect or bruising, which they are fortunately not prone to, or frost, causes the fruit to rot very quickly, much faster than other fruit. Discard all damaged fruit.

I read that quinces are quite prone to various rusts, ie fungal complaints, including ones that pears are prone to, and some extra just for you. I got one in 2004, which caused much blistering on the leaves and a swelling in the stem to the developing fruit, and all the fruit eventually aborted. After much searching, I discovered that this is "quince rust", which is only to be found mentioned in the very fattest encyclopedias of fruit tree diseases. This is actually a far more serious pest of cypress trees, especially in the US, and most of the information I found was about cypresses. It passes between cypress and quince, and can travel about a mile. In the case of the quince being affected, once you have it you are stuck with it for that year, though it is a good idea to remove all affected leaves and fruits. The following year, spray the tree with a SYSTEMIC fungicide after leaf burst but before flowering. Also a good idea to spray apple and pear trees which are also mildly prone to it - there was some evidence that an adjacent pear tree had been somewhat affected. I spotted a sickly cypress that was a potential suspect in the grounds of a stately home a couple of miles from my house. The spraying was effective in that I didn't get the disease in 2005. I didn't spray this year, mainly because the leaves came out very late and I didn't get in there before the flowers came, but it didn't recur.

This is evidently not the same as you have, but it indicates that some seemingly awful rusts in quince can be controlled, and in general a systemic antifungal spray on newly emerging leaves before flowering seems like a good idea if you have a rust problem.

La Puce wrote:

Merlin wrote:
I have two very productive quince trees, however a large proportion of
the fruit is affected by a "problem". The skin has largish numbers of
tiny black / grey dots and when you cut (hack!) the fruit open the
inside is heavily veined with brown to such an extent that 50%+ of the
fruit mass is brown and because it's veined that makes 100% of the fruit
mass useless.
Does anyone recognise this condition and can anyone put a name to it?
And ideally of course, I'd like to know what I can do to prevent it in
future.

How are the leaves and branches? Do you have black dots on the leaves
too? Or are they red? You might have Monilinia fructicolia (fruit rot).
Are the trees shadowed by a larger tree?

The leaves and branches seem fine, I'm not by the trees at the moment
(and since it's autumn it wouldn't help much if I was grin) but as far
as I can recall there were no black spots or other leaf problems. Just
the fruit.

The quince trees are not shadowed. They are in an orchard and only in
late evening is there any possibility of shadow. To the north of them
there is a wood with tall oaks but that's 20 or more metres away.

Thanks for the ideas. Is there a good site to look at pictures of these
sorts of problems?

Merl

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 15:35:36 +0100, ur
(Merlin) wrote:

I have two very productive quince trees, however a large proportion of
the fruit is affected by a "problem". The skin has largish numbers of
tiny black / grey dots and when you cut (hack!) the fruit open the
inside is heavily veined with brown to such an extent that 50%+ of the
fruit mass is brown and because it's veined that makes 100% of the fruit
mass useless.

Does anyone recognise this condition and can anyone put a name to it?
And ideally of course, I'd like to know what I can do to prevent it in
future.

Many thanks

Merl

A couple of wild guesses: shortage of water (bitter pit in apples is
more common in dry seasons) and boron deficiency (associated with
browning of some root crops and others). Probably neither of these,
but both easy to correct on a just-in-case basis.



--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

"Merlin" wrote in message
I have two very productive quince trees, however a large proportion
of
the fruit is affected by a "problem". The skin has largish numbers
of
tiny black / grey dots and when you cut (hack!) the fruit open the
inside is heavily veined with brown to such an extent that 50%+ of
the
fruit mass is brown and because it's veined that makes 100% of the
fruit
mass useless.

I think it might be "quince fleck" aka quince black spot". Bordeaux
at bud burst.

In article ,
Chris Hogg writes:
|
| A couple of wild guesses: shortage of water (bitter pit in apples is
| more common in dry seasons) and boron deficiency (associated with
| browning of some root crops and others). Probably neither of these,
| but both easy to correct on a just-in-case basis.

Possibly too MUCH water. I am no expert, but have observed that true
quinces tend to have problems in wet years - it is another Asia Minor
plant, after all.

Chaenomeles seems to have had a bumper year, and I have more than I
know what to do with.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

echinosum wrote:

Merlin Wrote:
I have two very productive quince trees, however a large proportion of
the fruit is affected by a "problem". The skin has largish numbers of
tiny black / grey dots and when you cut (hack!) the fruit open the
inside is heavily veined with brown to such an extent that 50%+ of the
fruit mass is brown and because it's veined that makes 100% of the
fruit
mass useless.

Does anyone recognise this condition and can anyone put a name to it?
And ideally of course, I'd like to know what I can do to prevent it in
future.

Couple of checks, sorry if this insults your intelligence:
1) You have Cydonia (true quince - looks like a pear tree, with pinkish
white flowers in May) not Chaenomeles (Japanese "quince" - thorny shrub
with brightly coloured flowers, usually red but other colours
available, in late winter/early spring)
2) You picked the fruit before the serious frosts

snip

This is evidently not the same as you have, but it indicates that some
seemingly awful rusts in quince can be controlled, and in general a
systemic antifungal spray on newly emerging leaves before flowering
seems like a good idea if you have a rust problem.

Thanks! And I don't insult easily!

It is a genuine Quince, Champion IIRC. And yes, picked well before the
serious frosts.

And to follow up on the other helpful posts - thank you all:

It was a very dry year and I could believe that that was a contributory
factor. OTOH the tree produced masses of huge, and otherwise very good
looking, fruit. These are also established (maybe 10 years) trees.
Perhaps a very dry spell at a particular stage of development? There's
no way these trees couuld have had too much water this season!

The boron thought is an interesting one - as you say, can't do any harm
to provide a few extra nutrients anyway to eliminate the possiblity.

But quince fleck / black spot sounds a definite candidate. A very quick
google produced little but seemed to suggest that Fabraea maculata might
be the same thing.

http://www.caf.wvu.edu/kearneysville.../omfabrea.html

My spots are pin-pricks, not the blobs shown in these pictures. Has
anyone found other pointers to quince fleck / black spot?

Many thanks again to all who have chipped in!

Merl

My googling established that quince fleck is Fabraea maculata.

The effect of boron deficiency on the fruit of apples/pears is described as "corky pit" - corky patches on the skin and inside the fruit. Also new shoots suffer die-back. Boron deficiency is mainly a problem in high rainfall areas with sandy soils, where it gets leached out of the soil, and above granite bedrock which contains little boron. It can also be a temporary problem in very dry periods, when there isn't enough water to deliver it to the plant. Also some types of soils are said to fail to mobilise boron to plants, though the sources I have seen disagree what these a compa
http://www.garden-care.org.uk/files/Fertilisers.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronutrient

Organic fertiliser, ie compost, is rich in boron. So if you are already putting organic fertilisers on, there is no need to add boron, and adding boron won't work unless you are adequately watered.

"Merlin" wrote in message

The boron thought is an interesting one - as you say, can't do any
harm
to provide a few extra nutrients anyway to eliminate the possiblity.

Be very wary about boron amendent - too easyt o overdo it. And, if it
was a boron deficiency, you should have noticed problems with the
leaves, and no spotting of the skin before you got the core of the
Quince being affected. You didn't mention leaf probs so I don't think
it would be boron deficiency.