The Grounded Orchardist

It’s a lovely day, a perfect one to enjoy the garden or orchard. You’re admiring your trees and then bam…you notice some of the leaves on your fruit trees are silver…What is that?

Why are some of the leaves on my tree silver?

Silver leaf disease is a common fungal disease on stone fruit. The above photo shows the disease on a Peach, but I have mostly seen and dealt with it on plum trees. The telltale major sign is the silver leaves. This is caused by the top layer of leaf separating from the bottom layer, the leaf has changed colour and this causes inefficient photosynthesis. However, this isn’t the problem itself.

The fungal disease is actually in the wood and will often show as a brown staining…this doesn’t always mean you have fungal disease though so unless you have the tell tale silver leaves, do your research! The silver leaves are cause by the top layer of the leaf coming away from the bottom layer in response to what’s happening in the branch/tree.

In the picture above you can see the healthy, glossy green growth on the left and the silver, matte unhealthy growth on the right…this is the most obvious sign of silver leaf disease.

How do I deal with Silver leaf disease?

If you find this on your stone fruit…

• Cut back to healthy green leaves.
• Check the wound to see if there’s brown staining, if there is….cut back further.
• Keep disinfecting your tools between each cut whilst doing this, to avoid spreading the infection!
• If it’s as far back as the trunk, I’m afraid you won’t get it out and you’ve probably lost the tree.

Aftercare

After pruning out, your tree is likely to be unbalanced aesthetically but try to avoid cutting off too much healthy growth if not needed. This will help give the tree strength to heal quicker and respond better.

Then just keep doing this each year until eradicated. This could be done in one season but more than likely in a few.