How to Identify and Treat Brown Rot Disease on Apple and Plum Trees (Monilinia)

You may have noticed pale brown and cream, cushion-like fluffy pustules on the surface of brown rotting fruit in your garden.

What’s causing the problem? How can you fix it? In the UK, these symptoms are most likely caused by brown rot.

Whilst brown rot will not kill your tree, this nasty disease can certainly destroy your crop of fruit. So what you can do to save your fruit trees?

This video shows you how identify brown rot disease on the fruit of apple and plum trees. You’ll also learn how to spot the ugly dried-out infected ‘mummified’ fruit which are frequently found on infected trees in the winter.

I also share four simple and easy control methods which will prevent your fruit from becoming infected with brown rot fungi. My advice to cure brown rot is to:

Prevent damaged fruit
Slow the spread of spores
Prune for reduced disease
Follow good garden hygiene

In the UK, brown rot is caused by two different fungal species, ‘Monilinia laxa’ and ‘Monilinia fructigena.’ A third Monilinia species, ‘Monilinia fructicola,’ causes similar symptoms of brown rot elsewhere in the world. Thankfully, ‘Monilinia fructicola,’ hasn’t yet been found in the UK - thank goodness!

The brown rot fungal species Monilinia laxa can also cause symptoms on the tree in the spring with a separate disease called Blossom Wilt.

Please note: Opinions stated in this video are my own. I have not been paid to sponsor or endorse any of the gardening products I mention in this video.

Here's the earlier video I made on Apple Scab Disease, as mentioned in this video:    • How To Identify and Cure Apple Scab D...  

⌚ Timestamps

00:00 Why worry about brown rot disease?
00:40 Symptoms on apples
01:48 Symptoms on plums
02:20 Mummified fruit
02:53 Fungal spores under a microscope
03:15 How do fruit become infected?
04:39 Brown rot fungi in the UK
05:14 Protect your fruit to stop brown rot
05:42 Prune to prevent disease
06:05 Remove infected fruit to slow the spread
06:35 Garden hygiene to reduce disease
06:50 Which trees are resistant to brown rot?

📝 Attribution:

Image of blossom wilt:
Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...