Hi, I've been lurking for some time now, enjoying browsing content of photos, and I would like to borrow some of the great know-how and information of the community.

I ordered two trees this spring, and the O'Rourke arrived with what looked like rust spots on its leaves. I spotted the tree, hoping that careful watering and growing would keep the disease in check until it went dormant and I could treat it with some copper sprays. Unfortunately, as you can see from the photos below, it really hasn't worked.

 

I've been removing the worst of effected leaves, but the spots just keeps spreading to the next set. Now it's spread to the LSU Purple, which, in retrospect, I probably should have moved somewhere else. I was just focused on keeping them away from my in-ground Chicago Hardy trees.

Would it be a good idea to spray the trees with some copper spray now? If I have to remove the effected leaves and do a spray regimen to keep the disease in check, I would have to remove quite a bit of foliage from the O'Rourke, and I'm bit worried about that.


I also have a question regarding over-wintering a new air-layered tree.

 
I experimented with an odd branch from one of my Chicago Hardy, and it appears to have worked fairly well. Does anyone see problem with overwintering the tree in a furnished basement that'll probably stay 55~65 degrees during the winter months?

Thank you in advance for any input you'd like to share with me. Always appreciated.

If your not going to get fruit you can remove leaves and they will grow back very very fast. After removing the trees leaves use coppet spray. I cant stand rust. I have done this to aleast 10 trees,this year. I live in Louisiana so rust gets on everything from figs to grapes to weeds. Next year i am going to treat trees right before they brake bud and the ground under them too. Probably no hope for rust but i am going to try.

At 55-65 degrees you'll have a hard time keeping the plant dormant.  Unless it gets a LOT of sun it'll grow weak, lanky branches and you'll be stuck with that as your tree structure.  If you can keep it below 45 it should stay dormant.  The other option is to keep it under a 1000 W HID lamp and let it grow all winter.

Of course all this is assuming you get freezes in your area.  Advice will be more accurate if you tell us where you are.

I thought the information I entered in my profile might show up, I guess not. I'm located in northern NJ, zone 7A. I have an attached garage that's unheated, and that is where I'll move the potted plants to. I am little more concerned with the air-layered one as it'll only have had little more than 2 months of growth period and perhaps not as hardy.

Hi LEvin,
Have you spread a chemical around ? Weeding chem ? paint ?
Those spots look like chemical burn, and not rust. So just let those leaves be as they are helping the tree.

For the small pot, the unheated garage is your best option. I left some pots last winter in the garden house (detached and unheated ), they froze solid several times and I thought they were goners (On the first "dirt solid frost", they still were outside and I rushed to put them inside the garden house the next day...)... Well, they broke bud, so I figured they wanted to grow some years more. And they are growing well. They both have maincrops on them, although I doubt they will ripen...
But those 3 pots are an experiment, and it is for fun , so let me see if they can do it :) .

That looks similar to what I saw on the leaves of some of mine when I bought it, but I haven't noticed it spreading to new growth just affecting older leaves that eventually get yellow and fall off.

Slightly off topic but is that a mango or peach/cherry in the background of your first photo?