What is wrong with my APPLE trees???

[Up-the-Creek]

DH purchased two trees back in the early spring. One is a Granny Smith, the other is a Golden Delicious. After planting they bloomed and looked real healthy, then they started to get spots on the leaves. This is a picture of it. I know nothing about fruit trees and I was wondering if anyone here knew what it was and if we could fix it.

They both have these spots. We live in WV and it has been raining pretty much non-stop for weeks,..could this have something to do with it?

 

[TillinWithMyPeeps]

I would say it is fire blight,

Check out the last picture on here : http://www.caf.wvu.edu/Kearneysville/disease_descriptions/omblight.html

 

[vfem]

my opinion:

Tiny Pale-yellow Spots on Leaves
Cedar Apple Rust - Cedar apple rust causes pale yellow, pinhead-sized spots on the upper surfaces of apple leaves. These spots enlarge and turn bright orange on foliage and fruit. This rust originates on nearby cedar trees, forming swellings, or galls, on their bark. Junipers and hawthorns can also spread cedar apple rust to apple trees. Spray apple trees with fungicide when cedar galls are releasing spores in the early spring. Remove all red cedar trees within 300 yards of the apple tree. Apple varieties resistant to Cedar Apple Rust include Liberty, Nova Easygro, Novamac, Priscilla, and Redfree.

http://gardening.yardener.com/SolvingAppleTreeProblems.html

 

[Up-the-Creek]

Andy123 thanks for the link! I do not think it is Fire Blight, I am leaning to what vfem suggested, Cedar Apple Rust, my neighbor has many cedar trees and there is a few still growing wild around here. I hope that is what it is, at least it can be managed. The only other disease i seen on there would be Alternaria Blotch, nasty stuff, that it even closely resembles and I hope it isn't that. I appreciate your alls help and I will have to do more research on it.

 

[patandchickens]

It absolutely looks like a rust; cedar apple rust is the commonest but there are other possibilities. Does not look to me like fire blight; if it were, you'd have branch ends dying and frizzling all up.

I do not honestly know whether there is much you can do about cedar apple rust at this point in the season, I'm more familiar with spraying earlier to head it off, but am not terrifically experienced with apples so *maybe* there is something to be done now too.

Standard advice is to clean up all fallen leaves and dispose of elsewhere (fire or garbage), remove any infected junipers in the area if you can, and try to catch it earlier next year.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[Up-the-Creek]

Okay I have been researching about this cedar apple rust and for this year there is nothing I can do about it. Next year, they say you can spray with a fungicide to help prevent it. My big question is is there an organic way to do this? I have my chickens housed close to the apple trees and my neighbors has honey bees. I know a chemical would not be good for the bees or my chickens plus I just hate to use any chemicals at all. So what do I do???? Dig them up and take them back to Lowes while they still are under their one yr. guarentee ,get my money back and get disease resistant varieties next year.

 

[Rosalind]

Wow. Looks from your picture like it is pretty bad.

Nope, there is not much you can do about cedar apple rust at all without resorting to the nasty chemicals, sorry. If the cedar trees were on your property, I'd say just prune the galls off the cedar trees--but this is often impractical (ever tried to prune a 70 foot cedar?) and anyway, any cedar within 4 miles can spread the stuff.

If it was just a couple of leaves, I would follow Pat's advice, but it really looks like the whole thing. Yes, the rain makes it worse, but it looks like you would always have it at least some. Probably your best bet would be asking Lowe's for your money back and getting Liberty, Novamac, Nova Easygrow, Redfree, Enterprise, Mcintosh, Winesap, Baldwin, something resistant that is suitable for your area.