These tiny pure white mushrooms are growing from the bark on the trunk on an approx 6 year old Almaden Duke cherry. I have the feeling that's not a good sign. I googled on "cherry tree fungus" and "cherry bark fungus" but did not find anything that looks like it. This is on the shady North side. There is none on the South side. I barely watered this tree during the hot summer, maybe two or 3 times.
I haven't decided what to do about it yet. The top of the tree has quite a few nice fat flower buds. Overall this tree would not be a big loss. It's never had much crop and the cherries are not very good. I wanted to graft it over to better varieties, but if the trunk is dead that's not worthwhile. If it's going to be a vector for a bad disease, I should just dig it out and burn it. It has suckers from below the graft, that I could graft to a better variety, assuming the fungus is not systemic and just growing on dead wood and not infectious.
These are only about 1/2 inch across. The trunk is not big.
I had a plum tree that grew fungus on one side only and it was due to root removal (dug a trench) and same tree problem associated with the same side. You would have voles (as you stated on other forum) as this could be eating away there too. Prunus mahaleb as an understock rather than prunus avium are the most vulnerable. There is a way of distinguishing the root you have but none I have ever practiced so I don't remember how or where I learned it.
Under stress caused by fungus, rots, or what have you. My tree finally died and before that I traced dead tissue all the way up over four feet and on the one side only. As I have a habit of doing that I also remember having Frost peach grafted to Citation root. The peach in need of replacement I dissected and found dead tissue all down the most shaded 2/3 side of the trunk which stopped into healthy tissue all around and below the point of the graft to Citation.
Rooney thanks for describing your experience. I think as long as I am thinking this is opportunistic -growing on dead wood - and not virulent disease, I will leave the tree in place but also graft new scion onto the rootstock suckers.
I bet this one is mahaleb and not avium. The tree was originally from Raintree.
I have a volunteer avium that may go for rootstock next spring.
Daniel: you have shizophyllum commune- split gill fungus. Remove those mushrooms. They are sending spores out to parasitize your other trees. I would consider killing that tree so it did not help attack your other trees. I would also think about using a method to attack that fungus, as it will do no good to your orchard.
John S
PDX OR
John S said
They are sending spores out to parasitize your other trees. I would consider killing that tree so it did not help attack your other trees.
Another problem few think about are viruses that can be carried from tree to tree. In one case I have seen a full grown tree in western Oregon where the owner had thought he had a new luck with a dwarfing sweet cherry tree. Before he decided to send it out for propagation I decided to have a sample sent in to a horticultural lab where it was tested positive for "prune dwarf" virus! Reports have it that one virus at a time will not normally effect cherry orchards but this might not apply to this side of the hills.
This is not the only case I have seen either and these cases were many years ago. Being convinced of our unique problems I had opened up a few discussion with Bill Howell WSU (now retired) who ran the lab. He sent me a few scions of Shirofugen japanese cherry so that I could do virus indexing to further the work of virus detection. I think he was the one responsible finding that Shirofugen has hypersensitivity reactions to the above virus and "ringspot", of which seem to be quite common around here, even on my neighbor's tree.
Bill's procedure requires you bud to a truly Shirofugen tree moved into a greenhouse for a time then bud it. If the bud turns black below the graft then that is a hypersensitive reaction and the test was positive for a virus. Not very practical to do so I never used his scions that way. I used them top grafted to other cherry trees. It seems practical if you know how to properly store cherry wood in the coldest possible conditions as I do. When they take and grow it shows me that Shirofugen has no genetic disagreements with what I grafted to (ie. Van), and has no viruses, as so far the case made for every nursery tree I have purchased.
The only thing un-practical (sometimes?) is finding a place cold enough where to store the scions. (ie. I have a dedicated freezer box with dedicated thermostat setting @ 28-34F)
This might be a bit off topic but at least it weighs in on testing and as to whether or not to remove.
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