| Home > Pest management > sooty blotch and flyspeck |
| Sooty blotch and flyspeck are fungal diseases that frequently occur together on apple fruit. Flyspeck appears as groups of small, shiny, black dots on the fruit surface. Sooty blotch appears as greenish irregular blotches or patches on the fruit surface. Individual blotches can grow together to form larger infected areas. Both diseases develop best under moist conditions (frequent rainfall and high humidity). They infect fruit from after petal fall through late summer. Optimizing air circulation around fruit by pruning the tree canopy and thinning fruit clusters can reduce incidence and severity of both diseases. Reduce inoculum by removing reservoir hosts, such as brambles, in and around the orchard. |
 |
 |
| Sooty blotch on Golden Delicious |
Flyspeck on Golden Delicious |
|
- For more monitoring information and evaluation of available pesticides:
Michigan Fruit Management Guide
- A Practical Guide to Scouting Apple Orchards – a DVD showing how to scout apple orchards.
- MSU Diagnostic Services for assistance in pest identification.
- MSU Fruit Crop Advisory Team Alert newsletters for current pest/crop conditions.
|
| This information was developed from A Pocket Guide for IPM Scouting in Michigan Apples by David Epstein, Larry J. Gut and George W. Sundin. (Jones and Sutton, Diseases of Tree Fruits in the East, MSU Extension NCR45). Purchase this in a pocket-sized guide for reference in the orchard from MSU Extension (publication E-2720). |
