Apple trees suffering from Scab

[berniehealy]

What causes SCAB. I get it every year. Also, my apples are more crab like. they are dry , small and bitter. The trees are about 7 years old and were only good to eat the first two years.
I feed and water them. only my soil is heavy clay.

 

[Diyisfun]

My potatoes had bad scab, dry weather is what is said for them.

 

[Deleted2797112]

It's a fungus. Good hygiene helps - prune out affected shoots on the tree and clear up the leaf litter in the autumn. If the infestation is bad, you can try spraying with a fungicide - as your trees are young it should be easy to reach the whole tree so the chances of success are good. Apart from the scab, is the tree otherwise healthy? They need a lot of water, probably more than you think.

The RHS has details of suitable fungicides here.

 

[berniehealy]

Many thanks for that.
Not brilliant, The leaves have rusty spots on them, and there is lychen growing on the bark. We pruned it last year and 2 years previous to that.
There is lots of air to circulate in the middle.
We have 2 trees, Gala and Braeburn. The braeburn has the same problem but the bark has split on the trunk 2 years ago.

I have a cherry tree which I am about to do a post on also.

It's a fungus. Good hygiene helps - prune out affected shoots on the tree and clear up the leaf litter in the autumn. If the infestation is bad, you can try spraying with a fungicide - as your trees are young it should be easy to reach the whole tree so the chances of success are good. Apart from the scab, is the tree otherwise healthy? They need a lot of water, probably more than you think.

The RHS has details of suitable fungicides here.[/qu