Yard chores have kept me busy the past few days, chief among them clean-up in the aftermath of the Attack of the Alien Fungus. It started when two of the many trunks on our oldest and hugest fig tree died last fall. Upon inspection, I found a large, spreading gray fungus with white edges, attached at the base of the dead trunks, where they meet the ground.
I’m not a fungus guy, but have read that one called Phymatotricham omnivorum is a known killer of fig trees, and have kind of assumed that’s the culprit. Later, though, I learned that figs have in recent years been devastated by something called Ceratocystis fimbriata in South America.
Meanwhile, I had to cut down a very large (15 feet tall and spreading) red tip shrub (Photinia fraseri) on Thursday because, I thought, it had been damaged by two much colder than average winters plus a big armadillo den that had been dug immediately beneath it. But upon inspection, it appears a fungus killed it. The fungus doesn’t look identical to the one infecting my fig, but then, maybe characteristics of different host plants could affect the appearance of the parasitic fungus. Like I said (and I love repeating it), I’m not a fungus guy, so I don’t know. I do know that two loquat trees near the red tip also have recently proven to be infected with a fungus, one more severe than the other. And a neighbor across the street has a very large loquat suffering from fungal attack.
I’m at a loss for answers, but obviously must learn how to control whatever it is that’s killing my trees, or else find fruit trees tolerant of these alien fungi.
