3 suggestions: Trim all the infected branches off and burn. Two, use 70% isopropyl alcohol and brush it on heavily. Or try something new and get some wettable powdered sulfur from the local nursery. It's $3.00 for a bag that can treat your entire yard and is NON-TOXIC to bees ! This stuff works good on fungus and kills chiggers, mites and small insects too. Sulfur is also a needed micro nutrient in the soil. Take your hose end sprayer and put 1-2oz of sulfur powder per instructions and spray away at dusk. Mealy bugs can terminate a plant over time. The cracking & splitting is the trees defense to the infestation. It's trying to heal the destroyed areas so the cambium (green portion underneath the bark) can supply nutrients from leaves to roots. Let us know what works best.

Here is a link that might be useful: Green Anything !

I cut off all the infected branches which was pretty much all of the tree except the main trunk....I had no choice....I will try the alcohol or the sulfur..

thanks
andy-

I received this message from UofH horticulture dept......

" The cracking and splitting is caused by the pest (insect or disease). The treeÂs defensive mechanism is usually callusing and tissue growth at the point (or adjacent to) the injury. This is done by the cambium which is located between the bark and the woody tissue."

Not mealybugs. Instead, woolly apple aphids.

The challenge to management is that they also live on the roots.

I had an apple tree which lived for years with them even though I managed only those that I could see aboveground by zapping them with spritzes of rubbing alcohol.

when you had the woolly apply aphids did they cause the mounds on the stems like my pic above....

thanks

andy

Yes. It's called gouting.

The critters feeds at wounds, both natural -- as in leaf scars -- and the pruning wounds you make.

And as said, they also feed on roots.

Take a look at this from Ohio State
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2208.html

Here is a link that might be useful: woolly apple aphid & more

it may or may not infest the roots.....so...should I let the tree live or pull it out....appreciate your response

andy

Wooly Apple Aphids are pretty much in every old orchard I manage and present no important problems after about 20 years of managing trees that harbor them. I would be inclined to investigate what makes your tree so susceptible to that kind of damage. It may be the growth on that tree is excessively soft and tender because of a nutritional imbalance including the possibility of excess nitrogen. Of course all the excess rain you probably got would contribute to rank growth. Nitrogen is the ingredient sucking insects are primarily after in the form of protein.

Removing the branches was entirely unnecessary- why didn't you just wipe off the bugs if this is such a small tree? There are a few over-the-counter insecticides that would kill the bugs on the spot and even hort-oil will smother them, I believe (as I said I've never actually had to target this pest even as they thrive in my trees).

The only time I would ever remove tissue as a treatment would be for an an infectious pathogen, usually fungus ocassionally bacteria (fireblight) or virus (on blackberries). I guess the one exception is aphid infestation in cherry leaves when they curl up. If it is a very young tree I might remove the leaves because I can't reach the aphids.

I am in southern calif....havent had rain in months...the picture above shows heavy splitting and cankors on the stems....all of the stems....if I had not cut them off I would have had an apple tree loaded with splits and cankors and dont think it would have survived...I was washing off the wolleys every two days but to no avail....I think removing the stems and hoping that new growth would come without the wolleys would be my only change to save the apple tree..I will spray with hort oil during the dorment season.....my other apple tree is ok....I will keep this posted for reference...

thanks

andy

Well, what do I know about waa in CA? Sorry, for some reason I crossed you over with someone in the northeast near me. I wouldn't bother trying to offer advice on pest problems in such a completely different environment than mine but I'm glad I did anyway. I learned somthing new about waa. I never new it could be such a pest above ground. Still, if I was you I'd get out the malathion.

Andy:

Any future apple trees you plant should be on M111 rootstock, which is resistant to WAA and should solve your problem (perhaps that's what your other tree is on).

Our climate has a dwarfing effect on apples and M111 can easily be kept a managable size. Like the posts above said, WAA can infect the roots of the tree, causing galls and burls that sap the tree of vigor and can kill it.

By the way, what are the apple varieties?

I purchased two ultra dwarf golden delicious......so...how do I find out I am buying a M111 rootstock....and should I forget about this tree and replant another one

thanks

andy

I'm not sure what "ultra dwarf" means, but it sounds like it would be a rootstock which grows very small. M111 is a "Semi-dwarf" rootstock which actually quite vigorous and grows quite large by comparison to most others. As I understand them, the terms "dwarf", "semi-dwarf", etc. are actually vague generalizations and mean different things to different people. You really need to know the rootstock here. The only way to find out is to ask your source. Where did you purchase them? If it was a local nursery, they probably don't know. But, they can contact their supplier. I had to do this a couple years ago, and eventually got the answer that I needed.
-Glenn

Around here slits like that are made by cicadas. It could be that some insect like cicadas is making those slits in the bark and WAA is then infesting them as a natural feeding site. I have never seen slits like that from WAA damage, but maybe there is something in southern CA that makes that happen. I spray summer oil on WAA and that usually takes care of them. Summer oil, like the name indicates, can be sprayed in the growing season.

Scott