my first thought is gophers? or Moles? If one took a liking to the root stock, they can be very quick to eat all the roots of one tree. Especially if they are on different root stocks, they may favor the flavor of the "indestructible"

Thanks for the feedback. Gophers was my first thought, they've definitely been a problem at our place for a while. But unlike other spots where I know they've been attacking, there are no openings near this tree, and no sign of tunnels. Tunnels at our place are usually shallow enough where they cave in when we step on them.

Plus, this tree is fairly good-sized, with a crown surface area of roughly 100 square feet. I wouldn't have expected a gopher attack on a tree that size to result in such an even level of destruction. Wouldn't it eat some roots and not others, and be more likely to make the tree damage appear ragged?

This is completely uniform in timing and severity in all the branches at once.

(I will definitely look harder for gophers -- this could be the start of an all-out war if they are truly guilty!)

Since my apricot failed to emerge this year I've been exploring possible causes, and I'm inclined to think that we gave it too much water. Apparently some apricot rootstocks are quite sensitive to being too wet. Since I don't know what our Mormon is on I can't really say.

But is it possible that the Indestructible was happy with drought and that since that experience you have been "taking better care of it", which might include being careful not to let it dry out? I'm pretty sure we drowned a plum and I'm not sure we didn't drown my poor 'cot.

Good luck!

:-)M

Mark,

In my experience, plums are extremely hard to kill from too much water, if on a plum rootstock. However, some nurseries will put plums on peach rootstock, and then they are no more water tolerant than a peach.

Apricots, on apricot roots, are a different story. They'll drown easy. With the heavy rains, and shallow water table, I lost two last year, and barely saved a third.

I agree the symptoms Leofelsic describes with her apricot could definitely be drowning. They just collapse like that.

That's a possibility I'll have to look into. I had definitely gone from watering them a couple of times a week in the summer to putting them inside a drip system loop. The ground around them was moist, but not saturated.

I might as well let this one dry out -- it's not like I have anything to lose at this point.

Well, when Softmentor said gophers...I could only think back to the time when my brother was proudly showing off his Pecan trees; when as we were looking at one and it started to lean, then fell over! all the roots had been chewed off. My brother declared war on the varmints and now sets out traps to keep them in check; but just barley.

Not hijacking this thread, am I?

Olpea, thanks for the information about plums. Our prune plum was a sucker that was given to us and I believe we misunderstood the nature of our soil -more clay than we'd realized. We still don't know for sure what happened, but when I read descriptions of drowning it did seem to fit- and we are being more careful with the replacements, also suckers from the same clone.

Leofelsic, I hope you'll let us know how this turns out.

M

Thanks -- no hijack at all. I'm interested in any background that can help me understand the context.

Our soil is very well drained, almost no clay. It's volcanic sand and gravel, with plenty of windblown alkali dust. That makes it hard to imagine that it would be likely to drown with a drip system. We have drip lines around most of our other fruit trees, and they seem to be doing fine.

I was stomping around under the tree today, and I did push into some soft ground that was indicative of gopher burrows.

Which leads me to return to my first final question:

"Is it too late?"

Leo,

The way your tree is collapsing indicates the roots are not delivering water to the tree. It may be gophers have eaten the root mass, borers, or too much water has killed the root mass, but something has messed with the water delivery system of the tree.

Just a thought, if the tree has been previously un-watered, the roots may be very deep indeed. As such, what you think is unsaturated soil, may be saturated farther down, where the roots are.

But as to "Is it too late?" I would say don't give up until the cambium dies.

I'm still waiting for my apricot to finally quit!!

But the truth is, I have no idea if it's too late or not.

Good luck,

M

olpea: "Just a thought, if the tree has been previously un-watered, the roots may be very deep indeed. As such, what you think is unsaturated soil, may be saturated farther down, where the roots are."

That's a very interesting thought. There's always the possibility of an inconvenient caliche layer at the wrong depth.
The water table here is 170 feet down, BTW.

There's no way, I guess, to judge all the possibilities. All I can do is keep watching and hope for the best -- and declare war on gophers.

If you could tell us just where in zn 8 you are located? someone in your area may have better answers, how cold did it get over the winter? I'm thinking pretty cold and dry perhaps... is sap oozing from the trunk? what condition is the trunk in? if the trunk is fine I just gotta think it is something wrong with the root system, this is just my best guess.

@leofelsic It's been a while, not sure you'll see this post, but wondering the outcome of the apricot tree. We're having the same problem with one of ours now.

When fruit trees go for extended time periods without water in California, it often leaves them susceptible to long-term other problems (insects and disease) to which they eventually succumb many years later. One or two years without being watered could end up resulting in the tree's death 7 years from now.

If the tree gets consistently watered (especially during the summer), California is one of the best regions in the country to grow fruit.