Black Bark on apples

gunfun13

5 year old buck +
I have 2 apples where the bark on trunk is turning black. One is a 4th leaf Liberty from a nursery, the other is a 3rd leaf Wolf River I grafted myself. It definitely seems to be impacting growth. What is it and can it be treated?

The Liberty has started to throw branches below the affected area with one being pretty sizable. My thought is to prune off the whole tree to that large branch below the black spot.

The Wolf River is affected right at the graft union, a few inches below and a few inches above. If I pruned off to below the bad area, I'd just have the rootstock.

Any advice?

Wolf River
IMG_20220108_114252.jpg

Liberty
MVIMG_20220108_114817.jpg
 
Is the black on the SW side of the trunks?
 
All the way around
 
My 20 year old Enterprise tree has some of it happening also. I’m reasonably sure it’s probably fire blight. Enterprise has enough resistance to fire blight that it hasn’t really hurt the tree. I planted some antonovka root stock whips that I’m going to top work over to Enterprise and some other verities to replace my ailing tree at the house.
 
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I've got a couple trees with similar black bark, a Winesap and a Wolf River. Both seemed to begin from a previous pruning cut. Everything from the black bark onward ended up dieing, so just had to cut back below the black. It's made for a couple of ugly shaped trees, but oh well.

Your tree with the infection in the graft union is most likely done for.
 
I've got a couple trees with similar black bark, a Winesap and a Wolf River. Both seemed to begin from a previous pruning cut. Everything from the black bark onward ended up dieing, so just had to cut back below the black. It's made for a couple of ugly shaped trees, but oh well.

Your tree with the infection in the graft union is most likely done for.

Not what I wanted to hear, but what I was expecting.
 
I have a bunch of Wolf Rivers like that and a few others. I figured it was sun scald? I never paint them and am kicking myself for it.
 
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