Tiny Spots on Sharp's Pygmy maple

[Mike254]

I purchased two beautiful sharps pygmy japanese maples in nursery pots this spring. One of them I potted up in an oversized bonsai pot with akadama and pumice and pruned ~50% of the roots. That one is doing wonderfully.

The other one I left in the nursery pot and did some minor pruning to the top of the tree. I didn't want to do any major styling on either tree in order to get a feel for it's growth and health during the first year of having it.

The one in the nursery pot was looking great up until today when I noticed it has lots of tiny brown spots speckled on the leaves of about half of the trees branches. Ive done some searching online but haven't found any examples of small spots just like these.

Should I be worried? Fungus, sun damage?

Before anyone asks, I have not been watering the one in the nursery pot as much as the one in akadama. I don't think it has been over watered.

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[Dabbler]

looks like fungus or something of that nature - not sun damage to me, least to doesn't look it. maybe it needs more sun?

 

[Mike254]

Do you have a go-to fungicide for maples that you can recommend?

 

[Hack Yeah!]

@Mike254 , please add your location to your profile. It'll help others to understand your questions and answer based on if you are in the northern or southern hemisphere, products have different brands in the US, Europe, Australia...

Daconil or Mancozeb will work, if it's actually fungus that is

 

[Mike254]

@Mike254 , please add your location to your profile. It'll help others to understand your questions and answer based on if you are in the northern or southern hemisphere, products have different brands in the US, Europe, Australia...

Daconil or Mancozeb will work, if it's actually fungus that is

Thanks for the tip, added Massachusetts zone 6a.

I do have some bioadvanced 3 in 1 for trees and roses, but I'll go out and grab some Daconil and use that instead.

Thanks!

 

[Mike254]

Adding another picture from newer interior leaves:

 

[MMJNICE]

Adding another picture from newer interior leaves: View attachment 546677

I'm having the same problem with all my maples I'm almost 100% sure it's tar spot. It started with a few little brown spots on a Japanese maple I got on E Ebay this early spring and has now spread to all my maples and I'm thinking my large elm tree under my Bonsai bench. I did remove the Japanese maples that started the whole infection to a spot away from everything but by then it was too late. I have silver maples red maples Japanese maples all with early signs of tar spots I've had to remove all the leaves that have any signs of tar spots on all my maples and gave everything a healthy spray of antifungal and a Systemic just to try get it under control. Thankfully it's not normally something that kills your tree but it looks horrible and they won't be looking beautiful for long if you don't take serious steps to control the spread. Remove that tree away from all your other tree and spray the living hell out of it!! Before it spreads. I've even seen some on my oak trees too. Remove and spray.. not trying to scare you but I've learned not to play with stuff like that.. if you see something that's off most times it is.

 

[Mike254]

I'm having the same problem with all my maples I'm almost 100% sure it's tar spot. It started with a few little brown spots on a Japanese maple I got on E Ebay this early spring and has now spread to all my maples and I'm thinking my large elm tree under my Bonsai bench. I did remove the Japanese maples that started the whole infection to a spot away from everything but by then it was too late. I have silver maples red maples Japanese maples all with early signs of tar spots I've had to remove all the leaves that have any signs of tar spots on all my maples and gave everything a healthy spray of antifungal and a Systemic just to try get it under control. Thankfully it's not normally something that kills your tree but it looks horrible and they won't be looking beautiful for long if you don't take serious steps to control the spread. Remove that tree away from all your other tree and spray the living hell out of it!! Before it spreads. I've even seen some on my oak trees too. Remove and spray.. not trying to scare you but I've learned not to play with stuff like that.. if you see something that's off most times it is.

How are your maples looking now?

Mine has been looking worse and slowly spread throughout the tree, but there's still 30-40% healthy foliage. There's also a couple of branches that are relatively bare but still pushing out new growth, albeit slowly.

I removed about 100 of the worst leaves today and sprayed it with bioadvance 3 in 1. I used daconil early last week.

Luckily it hasn't spread to my other sharps' pygmy or my other maples.

Can you share a picture of what your japanese maple leaf spots look like?

 

[Betula1]

I'm having the same problem with all my maples I'm almost 100% sure it's tar spot. It started with a few little brown spots on a Japanese maple I got on E Ebay this early spring and has now spread to all my maples and I'm thinking my large elm tree under my Bonsai bench. I did remove the Japanese maples that started the whole infection to a spot away from everything but by then it was too late. I have silver maples red maples Japanese maples all with early signs of tar spots I've had to remove all the leaves that have any signs of tar spots on all my maples and gave everything a healthy spray of antifungal and a Systemic just to try get it under control. Thankfully it's not normally something that kills your tree but it looks horrible and they won't be looking beautiful for long if you don't take serious steps to control the spread. Remove that tree away from all your other tree and spray the living hell out of it!! Before it spreads. I've even seen some on my oak trees too. Remove and spray.. not trying to scare you but I've learned not to play with stuff like that.. if you see something that's off most times it is.

The original photos of symptoms dont look like Tar spot- check out

Tar spot of maple / RHS Gardening

Tar spot is a very conspicuous fungal leaf spot disease of <a href="~/plants/search-results?form-mode=false&query=sycamore" target="_blank">sycamore</a> and some other maples. Whilst the large leaf spots sometimes cause gardeners concern, they actually do very little damage to the tree.

www.rhs.org.uk

Acer: leaf scorch / RHS Gardening

The attractive delicate foliage of Japanese maples (<em>Acer palmatum</em>) is prone to leaf scorch. Cultivars with heavily dissected foliage are particularly prone. Scorch occurs following environmental stresses, such as drying winds, and leads to the foliage turning brown.

www.rhs.org.uk

 

[Mike254]

Well, I'm sorry to say that it got worse. Much worse. Just last night I removed most of the damaged leaves and sprayed it with bioadvance 3 in 1.

Today it looks WORSE than it did before I removed the damaged leaves. How could removing the bad leaves cause almost all of the good leaves to become just as bad overnight?

I'm beginning to think the bioadvance 3 in 1 damaged the leaves, but I can't be sure.

In any case, from what I can find online I believe this is anthracnose. I cut off about a 3mm thick tip off of a branch and didn't see any signs of verticallum wilt in the cross section. But I'm no expert.

I really, really don't want to lose this maple. Out of all of the plants I have, this is the one I want to keep the most.

At this point I don't know what to do. I'll probably just reapply daconil every week and otherwise not touch it.

 

[MMJNICE]

How are your maples looking now?

Mine has been looking worse and slowly spread throughout the tree, but there's still 30-40% healthy foliage. There's also a couple of branches that are relatively bare but still pushing out new growth, albeit slowly.

I removed about 100 of the worst leaves today and sprayed it with bioadvance 3 in 1. I used daconil early last week.

Luckily it hasn't spread to my other sharps' pygmy or my other maples.

Can you share a picture of what your japanese maple leaf spots look like?

OK I completely Defoliated my japanese maple but here's what it looks like on my silver maple clump planting.. it looks the same as what was on Japanese maples

How are your maples looking now?

Mine has been looking worse and slowly spread throughout the tree, but there's still 30-40% healthy foliage. There's also a couple of branches that are relatively bare but still pushing out new growth, albeit slowly.

I removed about 100 of the worst leaves today and sprayed it with bioadvance 3 in 1. I used daconil early last week.

Luckily it hasn't spread to my other sharps' pygmy or my other maples.

Can you share a picture of what your japanese maple leaf spots look like?

Completely defoliated my Japanese Maple, but here's a picture of what it looks like On my silver Maple. It looks the same as on the japanese maple but Disposed of ,,,and by disposed I mean burned all the leaves that I've found that crap on the leaves.. I'm about to cut this leaf off and burn it..

 

[MMJNICE]

Here's what I sprayed on it to try to get it under control. BTW black tar spots starts off as yellowish then goes black as the fungus Infection gets worse the tree will try to drop the effected leaves like your tree is doing.. I just made sure by completely Defoliating the tree all the infected material gets burned and spraying every concoction I can get my hands on to try to Eradicated. I also completely cleaned removing all old leaves and Debris away from all my trees burning or throwing away everything that Held moisture as well. I haven't seen it running wild like it was so far. Although I did find two leave and that's how I got my photo to you.