Bacterial canker of stone fruit: how to spot, prevent and treat it disease
How do you spot bacterial canker of stone fruit?
On the trunk and branches there are sunken, dead patches of bark, oozing sticky gum in spring. The leaves carry small holes, as if the leaf had been shot through. The branch above a canker dies. Many a tree shows only leaf and shoot symptoms and never gets a canker on the trunk.
How do you prevent bacterial canker of stone fruit?
The bacterium enters through wounds and through the leaf scars at leaf fall, so stone fruit is pruned in summer, when the tissue resists best, and never in winter. The same timing also protects against silver leaf.
What works against bacterial canker of stone fruit?
For the home garden there is no product against this disease. What is left is cutting: take the cankered parts back to healthy wood, disinfect the tools as you go and remove the prunings from the garden.
Which plants get bacterial canker of stone fruit? 5
Fruit trees 5
Sources: EPPO Global Database, Royal Horticultural Society
Checked on 18 August 2026.