Sunscald on a Crab apple tree. How serious is that?
We have about a 4 year old crab apple in our front yard. Early this spring I noticed the bark near the base of the tree had developed a vertical crack that ran about 3 inches or so up the tree.
I just today got around to putting some of the black goop (arborer’s putty?) on the wound to help protect it. When I did this, I was surprised how little of the damage had been exposed. I ended up pulling off clearly dead and somewhat rotten bark where the wound was to clean the injury for coating of the goop. The dead bark ran about 1/3 the circumference of the tree, maybe a hair more. I plan to buy a white plastic trunk wrap from our local nursery this winter to help reflect the sun and prevent this from happening again.
The tree has bloomed and leafed as usual. But, I’m not sure how long it takes for fatal tree damage to kill the tree. I would assume if it has recovered from dormancy it should be okay right? Did I treat the injury as I should have to help keep the tree alive? Is sunscald typically a major injury that can kill a tree?
2 Responses
B Anne
01 Jul 2010
Tim Wilson
19 Dec 2011
Poor news – Syria’s ‘mutilation mystery’ increases…
It is good to remove the damaged bark down to where it is healthy. Wound dressing is not recommended as it sometimes does more harm than good. Trees usually can survive an occurrence of sun scald and will form a scab. You do want to wrap the tree in late fall and remove the wrap in the spring.