Help, borer, canker, or something else?

[Medusa656]

This is my snow fountain weeping cherry, planted a few years ago, tree seems healthy but what is this?

 

[Mad Professor]

Looks like peach tree borer.

You should find a hole under the gummy area that is the borer tunnel. Sometimes you can run a piece of wire in the hole and harpoon the larva.

If the larva are in the roots or at ground level I've had luck fumigating them with moth balls. Distribute moth balls at the base of the tree and cover with a layer of dirt, add more moth balls and dirt until you cover the effected area. Leave this in pace a few months then hoe it away. It's an older method but it has saved some of my peaches more than once. It's best to kill the larva with a piece of wire if possible first.

 

[Medusa656]

Thank you for your reply, I'm nervous about using moth balls because of my dogs, I'm doing some research on peachtree borers and a lot of what I'm seeing is recommending neem oil, spinosad, Bt, and pyrethrin, do you have any advice on which of those work best, if any of them can be used together?

 

[Mad Professor]

You've got to get the eggs/larva BEFORE they bore under the bark for any of those botanical poisons to work. That mean setting phermone traps to catch adults , to know when to spray.

You might be able to inject those into the bored holes to kill the larva. I us BT on squash vine borers and a 5-mL syringe. I use all those botanicals.

The mothballs will work, and animals are repelled by the smell.

Try getting a mothball next to your puppies noses. Let me know if they like the smell?

 

[Medusa656]

Ok, I will definitely try to use wire to kill the larva, I'm going to dig down a little deeper to see if there is anymore damage because right now I'm only seeing a couple holes, but I haven't cleaned off the gummy stuff yet either, will that just scrape away? As far as the moth balls I'll get some and see how my dog reacts to it, I'm only worried about one of them because she literally eats any and everything.

 

[ATH]

Peach tree borer is generally a problem for stressed trees. That tree is planted deep. Fix that first.

Since this is not a tree you are eating off of, you can use imidacloprid to treat them systemically. You would not want to do that on a fruit producing tree.

That may or may not be peach tree borer...the broad term would be gumosis. Something is causing the tree to respond with sap flow.

 

[Medusa656]

Yeah I noticed it seemed to be planted deep, the landscape company I bought it from planted it, I don't know a lot about trees, do I just dig the mulch and dirt away from the base until I see it start to flare out? I thought imidacloprid was only helpful for beetle type borers? I just returned a systematic product with that ingredient because from what I've read it won't help with peachtree borers. Is there any other reason that would cause the sap to come out at the soil line like that? The tree has not been damaged that I know of, I don't mow or weedeat near it. Also from reading I found that weeping cherries tend to get two types of borers, peachtree and shot hole, are there other types that go for weeping cherries? I'm pretty positive my tree is grafted, not sure if that makes a difference.

 

[Medusa656]

I think that's a hole by the one arrow, I'm not sure what the is under the bark by the other arrow, and are those just grubs by the third arrow?

 

[ATH]

Yeah...my bad. Was not with it last night! You want dinotefuran for a lepidoptera.

As for deep planting: yes, pull mulch and soil back to find the root flare.

A weeping tree is grafted, but the graft is where it goes from trunk to the weeping branches. On occasion I've seen another graft at the root stock, but i haven't seen that on cherry. Not saying it cannot be...

 

[Medusa656]

Are these cankers? Or?

 

[Medusa656]

Ok so I dug out the soil and mulch, and removed the sap, I don't see any borer holes, I think I see the flare, but I also see what looks like a knot just under the soil and all these little roots, do I cut those? Did I dig it out enough? I'm posting pictures, I need advice please, I don't know anyone who knows anything about proper tree care