Is Your Dogwood Tree Suffering from Anthracnose Disease?
As soon as warm weather begins to arrive, your dogwood trees awaken, and you can’t wait to see their blooms. Then one day, you start to notice the appearance of spots on the leaves or the flowers themselves. Could something be wrong?
Flowering dogwoods can live up to somewhere around 80 years, but many need a little help along the way. These hardy trees are, unfortunately, vulnerable to diseases, and in particular fungal diseases. One of those is Anthracnose.
What is Anthracnose?
Are the leaves, bracts, or fruit on your dogwood showing signs of small, tan spots with purplish borders developing? Are the leaves starting to wrinkle? If so, your dogwood may be suffering from Spot Anthracnose.
One of the more common diseases of dogwood trees, Spot Anthracnose is caused by a fungus that lives on year after year, usually in infected branches, twigs, and leaves.
The disease develops due to frequent rainy weather or extended times of high humidity. Its spores can spread easily from leaf to leaf by way of splashing water.
To help your dogwood out, increase air circulation by thinning out the canopy. If spotting continues to spread, you may need to use fungicides.
More severe than Spot Anthracnose is Dogwood Anthracnose, caused by a different fungus. This one is dangerous to the life and health of your tree. Signs of this include stem cankers, twig blights, and leaf lesions. An infected Dogwood’s leaves may turn brown but stay attached to the tree.
You will need to prune carefully, removing as many of the dying or dead limbs and twigs as you can. This can prevent the spread of the disease to the tree’s trunk. Spraying with a fungicide is usually the next step, but additional attention will also be needed.
For help determining if your trees are experiencing Anthracnose in any form, contact us here at Advanced Tree & Shrub Care for a consultation. We’ll examine your dogwoods and recommend the best course of action going forward.