Apple tree with disease

[Rustington]

Last spring our fully blossomed apple tree all of a sudden lost lots of its blossom and some of the branches and leaves went a frosty white before dying. Also noticed patches of white fluff in places on the tree.

 

we sprayed the tree a few times with anti fungal but it kept coming back all summer. We have had nothing through the winter but suspect it will return in the spring.

 

Is there a way of treating this lovely tree?

 

edit: images added.

Edited January 27 by Rustington
Added photos

[peds]

Have a quick Google images search for "wooly aphids apple tree". Is that at all similar to the fluff you saw?

 

Edit:

Predictably, being a smelly hippy, my first bit of advice is to stop spraying the tree for... well, pretty much anything. But especially don't spraying antifungal if the problem is a wooly aphid 😉 

 

Oh, and pictures of the tree would always help 👍

Edited January 27 by peds

[Rustington]

Yes, it looks very much like wooly aphids. I’ll try and find some photos I took of it last year, but would say that is what the tree has.

 

Is there any cure for it?

[peds]

Off the top of my head, the best solution for wooly aphids would be wooly ladybirds,  but if you can't find those, regular ladybirds will do.

[Rustington]

21 minutes ago, peds said:

Off the top of my head, the best solution for wooly aphids would be wooly ladybirds,  but if you can't find those, regular ladybirds will do.

Haha not sure where to find any type of ladybird if I’m honest

[Stere]

Hard to  offer much advice thats useful  without pictures really

 

I thought it might be   mildew from the desrciption but its a guess

 

Apple Powdery Mildew (Podosphaera leucotricha) | NIAB

WWW.NIAB.COM

 

Quote

Powdery mildew is one of the most important diseases of apple in the UK, reducing yield and quality on susceptible varieties.

 

 

 

Iv'e never noticed much serious problems with either aphids or mildew on apple trees didn't realize its such an issue.......

 

Plenty of canker about  for many yrs and the last few yrs have also noticed blossom wilt....

 

 

I agree not worth spraying

 

[peds]

20 minutes ago, Rustington said:

Haha not sure where to find any type of ladybird if I’m honest

 

Companion planting, encouraging biodiversity, eliminate all chemicals from your garden (and your neighbours'...), and as a last resort, you can buy a box of them from the Internet. But... without enacting all the other steps first, they'll either die or fly away.

[Rustington]

Images added @peds @Stere

[peds]

Yeah, definitely wooly aphids on some of those. They can also be a vector for spreading diseases around a tree, or indeed sharing them to other trees.

 

Focus on them, and the tree might improve.

[Rustington]

3 hours ago, peds said:

Yeah, definitely wooly aphids on some of those. They can also be a vector for spreading diseases around a tree, or indeed sharing them to other trees.

 

Focus on them, and the tree might improve.

So I need to find some ladybirds