Fungus on Peach Tree Bark

Oak Bracket (Inonotus dryadeus)



Description: Annual bracket ranging from 10-70cm across. Pale when young, usually with droplets of clear to brownish liquid that seep from tubes on top. The flesh is reddish brown, hard and fibrous. The bracket will darken after several weeks, before turning black and cracked but remaining on the tree for a year or more. Spores exuded from pores leaving an off-white spore print

Habitat: The base of trunks of oaks

Season: All year though most often late summer

Strategy: Parasitic and saprophytic to oak trees causing triangular white rot, starting with decay of lignin around roots and base
Significance: Eventual ductile fracture at point of decay

Notes: Locally common. Not edible. Photograph taken September



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Birch Polypore (Piptoporus betulinus)



Description: Annual bracket ranging from 10-10cm across. Roughly spherical and pale when young, expanding to a semi-circular pale brown bracket and persisting for a year or more, by which time usually found blackened. The flesh is white and rubbery. Spores exuded from pores leaving a white spore print

Habitat: Usually dead birch trunks and branches, but occasionally found on living hosts.

Season: All year

Strategy: Parasitic causing brown cubicle rot. Persisting as a saprophyte once the tree has died.
Significance: Brittle fracture at point of decay, and usually the demise of a birch tree.
Notes: Enters wounds in healthy trees or may be present and dormant within vascular system from seed, but usually only becomes active when trees are stressed or in decline Very common. Not edible. Photograph taken February

What are bracket fungi?


Brackets are the fruiting structures of many different fungi that cause heartwood decay in standing trees. The fungal bodies or brackets appear in spring, summer and autumn, but weakened trees can topple at any time. Note that there are other fungi which also cause decay that are not bracket fungi.

There are many different types of bracket fungi, many which are specific to a particular host and often of little importance in gardens. Important ones that commonly cause significant damage to garden trees include:

• Ash heart rot, caused by the bracket fungus Inonotus hispidus, attacks Fraxinus (ash), Juglans(walnut), Malus (apple), Platanus (plane), Ulmus (elm) and other broad-leaved trees
• Beech heart rots, caused by the bracket fungi Ganoderma applanatum and G. adspersum attack a wide range of broadleaved hosts, especially Fagus (beech)

Although there are many different bracket fungi, they all cause similar symptoms, as mentioned below.



Symptoms


Some of the symptoms you may see:

• External symptoms: the first external symptom of bracket fungus infection is often the appearance of the bracket-shaped fruiting bodies on the trunk or main branches. These can be up to 60cm (2ft) in diameter and may be annual or perennial. This may be preceded by visible crown thinning and die-back, but not always. By the time a bracket appears there will usually have been extensive heartwood decay. Since decay weakens the wood, another symptom may be falling branches
• Internal symptoms: these fungi may cause either white or brown rot in the heartwood; both are structurally weakening. In some cases, the tree becomes hollow and may remain stable, but decay usually leads to weakening and eventual breakage or wind throw. Foresters distinguish top rots, which affect upper parts, from root or butt rots which affect the roots and base of the tree. The latter, such as Meripilus giganteus, are particularly damaging because the whole tree may fall

Control


Non-chemical control

• Unfortunately there is little you can do in terms of hygiene or cultural control to prevent bracket fungi
• Removing brackets to prevent spore release will have very little effect on the overall risk
• Trees have some ability to limit the spread of internal infection by responding to the fungus with natural chemical barriers. For this reason, experts no longer recommend painting pruning cuts with wound paints, since as these age they crack, trap water and may actually increase the risk of infection
• Some trees are known to be susceptible to certain bracket fungi: Fagus (beech), Fraxinus (ash) and Prunus are all very susceptible to specific bracket fungi. There is very little information on resistance within cultivars

 

I agree, Pal.

 

I agree with Ziggy.