What does it look like?
Symptoms of Apple black spot include circular black spots on leaves and apple fruit.
Infection early in the season may cause misshapen fruit. By harvest, spots are dried, cracked, and brown with a black outer edge.
Infection just prior to or during harvest causes small black 'pepper spotting' on fruit.
Why is it a problem?
Apple black spot is found all over the world wherever apples are grown. In New Zealand, black spot is a common problem in all regions. It’s a wet weather disease. Rainy and humid conditions early in the growing season provide ideal conditions for infection. In general, the higher the temperature and the longer it rains, the more severe the infection period will be.
Apple black spot is spread mainly through windblown leaves which carry spores of the fungus.
Control methods
Control methods include clearing away leaf litter and dead material from trees, and using fungicides.
Management Programme
Sustained Control Programme
To provide for ongoing control of the subject, or an organism being spread by the subject, to reduce its impacts on values and spread to other properties.
Rules
Plan rule 19 apple black spot
Occupiers of unmanaged pipfruit production sites shall, on receipt of a written direction from an Authorised Person, control [NAME] on their land from the presence of green tips until fruit maturity/harvest.
