What does it look like?
Initial symptoms of European canker are a small and sunken area around a bud, leaf scar, or at the base of a small dead shoot or open wound. Concentric rings of canker begin to form, expanding outward as the affected area enlarges. Over time, the centre of the infection dries out and becomes flaky, indicating disease progression.
Rain splash and wind spread the spores and fruiting bodies of European canker. European canker can also be spread through the movement of affected plants or plant parts.
Why is it a problem?
European canker is a fungal disease that, if left unmanaged, can spread rapidly, often leading to the removal of entire trees or even complete orchard block.
Over time, cankers can girdle the stem, causing dieback of shoots above the affected area. The fungus may also lead to fruit rot, which poses a quarantine risk in certain export market.
Related links
Management Programme
Sustained Control Programme
Sustained Control exists to hold well-established pests at an acceptable maximum. However, the costs of management and control grow in-step with the size of the invasive population. Because cost:benefit returns can fall to 1:5 or less, most of this work is focused on specific sites of high ecological value. While the spread of these pests between neighbouring properties remains the predominant risk, in some cases control within properties is still sought and warranted. A sustained control programme will hold populations to maximum acceptable limits over the period of the RPMP.
More informationRules
Plan Rule 19
Occupiers of unmanaged pipfruit production sites shall, on receipt of a written direction from an Authorised Person, control;
a) apple black spot on their land from the presence of green tips until fruit maturity/harvest
b) codling moth on their land if five or more codling moths are caught in any one codling moth pheremone trap during any calendar week on their land
c) European canker by inspecting all pipfruit trees on their land at least four times during the year, applying post-harvest sprays if canker is found and removing and burning all infected pipfruit tree parts showing any presence of European canker
d) fireblight on their land during the pipfruit bloom period (from pink to petal fall)
e) lightbrown apple moth on their land once thirty lightbrown apple moths are caught in any one lightbrown apple moth pheremone trap on their land from 15th December until fruit harvest
on their land from the presence of green tips until fruit maturity/harvest.
Taxonomies
TypeDiseases
GroupFungi and rust
HabitatLand
Management ProgrammeSustained Control Programme
RulesPlan Rule 19
