Schutte conifers: photo, treatment, preparations

Coniferous Schutte is a common disease that affects many plants. You can fight the disease, but first you should study its types and features.

Description of the Schutte disease

Schutte is a whole group of fungal diseases provoked by a variety of pathogens. The disease affects coniferous plants, leads to the death and shedding of needles. The name of the fungus itself comes from the German schutten, or “pour”.

Plants become infected with shute from sick relatives, and the infection also passes to healthy specimens from fallen needles, and is spread by wind and insects. You can recognize the disease by several symptoms:

• white, gray or moldy coating on needles;
• changing the shade of the needles from green or bluish to yellow, brown and orange;
• the appearance of black spots and cobwebs on the shoots of the plant.

If left untreated, the infection develops rapidly and causes profuse shedding of the needles. Entire branches and wide areas on the trunk are completely exposed.

Conifers affected by the disease lose their decorative effect and stop developing. The disease leads to disruption of the processes of nutrition and photosynthesis.

Schutte is very dangerous for conifers in the first three years after planting.

Causes

Schutte needles appear on plants in adverse conditions. Most often, the disease provokes increased humidity, which can develop:

• during prolonged rains in cool weather;
• with excessive watering of coniferous trees;
• with excessively tight fit and insufficient ventilation;
• with a close location of groundwater;
• when thickening the crown of conifers.

Both young and mature trees can suffer from infection. But the latter have a much higher chance of recovering from an illness with proper treatment. The disease is most dangerous for young sensitive seedlings and for plants already weakened by other fungi.

Shutte types and their treatment

It is customary to distinguish several types of infection. Diseases are similar in symptoms, but they are provoked by different fungi.

Ordinary Shutte

The common schütte is caused by the fungus Lophodermium seditiosum. The disease most often affects pine, in the first stages it leads to reddening of the needles and the appearance of black stripes. Needles can remain on the branches for a long time – until the beginning of the next season. But already at the end of the first summer, the fruiting bodies of the fungus appear on the needles – oval apothecia up to 2 mm long.

Ordinary schütte quickly spreads through plantings and requires immediate treatment.

Coniferous Snow Shutte (Facidiosis)

The causative agent of snow shute is the fungus Phacidium infestans. It manifests itself, first of all, with a gray coating that occurs on the needles immediately after the snow melts. After a while, the needles become red, and then turn gray again and become covered with black dots. By the end of summer, the needles acquire an ashy shade. According to the structure, the needles become very fragile and crumble easily, but at the same time they do not fall off the shoots for a long time.

The disease is often found on trees growing in northern regions with a snow cover height of about 50 cm. The fungus develops during winter even at sub-zero temperatures. Its activation is especially facilitated by a long cold spring with frequent rains.

Snow shute usually affects pine, rarely affects spruce species

Shutte brown, or brown snow mold

The disease develops under the influence of the fungus Herpotrichia nigra, attacks not only spruces and pines, but also cedars, firs and junipers. Trees are usually infected in autumn. In winter, the infection develops under the snow, and with the onset of spring, a brown-black coating forms on the needles.

In September, dark dots become visible on the needles – rounded or pitcher-shaped fruiting bodies of the pathogen. In most cases, the needles remain on the shoots for a long time.

The first symptoms of brown snow shute usually appear in March or April.

gray schütte

The causative agent of the disease is the fungus Hypodermella sulcigena. Symptoms of the disease in conifers occur in early June – the needles turn yellow, and then turn gray at the tips. In this case, the affected and healthy areas are separated by a brown-violet stripe. Over time, small black dots form on needles that have changed color.

The gray schütte affects mainly pine trees under ten years old.

Schütte larch (Merioz)

The disease can be caused by the fungus Meria laricis or Hypodermella laricis. It manifests itself by external signs in May, red-brown spots appear on larch needles. Gradually, they increase in size, merge with each other and darken, forming a dense coating. White dots-conidia appear on the inside of the needles.

Larch needles with meriosis easily crumble even from a weak wind

Schutte spruce

The disease is provoked by the causative agent Lophodermium macrosporum. At the end of April or May, the needles of spruce turn yellow and turn brown, and then gradually begin to fall off. The disease develops slowly, the tree noticeably crumbles only after a year or later. By autumn, the fruiting bodies of the pathogen become visible on the needles – elongated black growths up to 3,5 mm.

The causative agent of Schutte spruce tolerates wintering well in harsh conditions and is therefore especially dangerous for conifers.

Shutte juniper

The disease provokes the fungus Lophodermium jiniperinum, the needles under its influence acquire a reddish-brown or yellow color. From below, the needles are covered with flat or oval black dots, often merging with each other at the tips.

Shutte juniper affects plants in a variety of conditions. But most often, coniferous shrubs and trees located on waterlogged soil suffer from the disease.

With a dense planting of junipers as part of a hedge, the schütte becomes especially dangerous for coniferous plants.

Weymouth Pine Schütte

Weymouth pine suffers from a fungus from the genus Leptostroma. Schutte is manifested by a change in the color of the needles – the needles turn brown, dry out, and become covered with small black dots. Usually the infection affects old shoots, but can also affect annual branches.

Weymouth pine is considered shade-tolerant, but to prevent schutte, it should be planted in light and dry areas.

Ways to deal with shute

There are many ways to deal with snow shute and other varieties of the disease. At the first symptoms of the disease, it is especially recommended to use several remedies.

Bordeaux liquid

One of the most popular antifungal drugs is beneficial in the early stages of the development of Schütte conifers. Prepare the remedy as follows:

1. Dilute about 300 g of copper sulfate in 5 liters of tepid water.
2. In a separate container, 300 g of slaked lime is dissolved in a similar amount of liquid.
3. Copper sulfate is poured into alkali in a thin stream.
4. Mix thoroughly.

The resulting preparation is used for spraying conifers along the crown. A 3% solution is used in early spring. If the treatment has to be repeated in the summer, then a product with a concentration of 1% is made.

It is necessary to spray coniferous trees with Bordeaux liquid from shute 3-4 times during the season

Topsin-M

The antifungal drug is used not only for vegetable crops, but also for conifers. The standard treatment solution is prepared as follows:

1. Pour 10-15 g of the drug into 2 liters of warm water.
2. Stir until a homogeneous suspension is obtained.
3. Top up with 8 liters of clean liquid.
4. Once again, stir thoroughly.

Spraying of conifers is carried out in dry, but cloudy weather. Shake the container every 15 minutes to prevent sediment from forming at the bottom.

Topsin-M is allowed to be used for conifers twice per season with a break of at least two weeks

Nitrofen

Nitrofen is an effective drug designed to kill pests and fungal microorganisms wintering in the ground and on needles. The working solution is prepared according to the following algorithm:

1. About 200 g of the drug is poured with a small amount of water.
2. Stir the product properly.
3. Bring to a volume of 10 liters and pour into a sprayer.

Processing of coniferous trees is carried out in early spring. In late autumn, re-spraying can be performed to prevent recurrence of the infection.

Nitrofen not only copes with fungi, but also neutralizes pests and lichens

Prevention of infection

It is quite difficult to cure coniferous shutte, and in the last stages it is simply impossible. Therefore, priority is given to prevention, which boils down to several points:

1. Careful selection of seedlings. Buy for planting you need only healthy plants with strong roots and green shoots.
2. Moderate watering. Some conifers do not respond well to prolonged drought. However, swampy soil for most breeds is a danger. Trees and shrubs should be moistened moderately, in accordance with the real need.
3. The right choice of location. Conifers should be planted in light, well-drained soil. In addition, trees need a lot of light – even hardy spruces are not recommended to be placed in dense shade.
4. Preventive sprays. In early spring, conifers should be treated with Bordeaux liquid even in the absence of symptoms of schütte.

Trees that appeared on the site as a result of self-seeding often suffer from infection. Such plants are recommended to be removed from the soil in a timely manner and transferred to a new site with suitable conditions.

If signs of a schütte still appear on the site, the affected shoots are cut off and burned even before the trees are treated with fungicidal agents. If the treatment of a coniferous plant does not bring a noticeable effect, it must be eliminated from the site as a whole until neighboring specimens have become infected.

Conclusion

Coniferous Schutte is a common and rather dangerous disease. It poses the main threat to young trees, leads to a decrease in decorativeness, and eventually causes the death of plants.