Cedar Apple Rust Gall

Cedar-Apple Rust is a bane in my garden. I hate it! At first the gall; which shows itself in Eastern Red Cedars (Juniperous virginiana), seems harmless enough, even if it is a bit weird looking. There it is above. This is the actual hard gall and is how the fungus overwinters in the junipers. You see, cedar-apple rust, aka Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae, is a fungus that completes its life cycle on both junipers and apple trees. In my case, I have a crabapple not far from this particular juniper and I suspect the two are exchanging fungi whenever it rains. The crabapple never shows any damage so the juniper must be getting the worst of it. Stupid plants!! They need to quit that frolicking and exchanging of fungi!

I actually cut about seven of these galls out of this particular juniper. What is also funny, is that I have other junipers that are located closer to some of the crabapples growing in my garden, yet this particular juniper is the only one that shows any infection. Go figure.

Well, with the recent warm weather and rains we've been experiencing, guess what happens to the gall?

It turns into something totally different from the hard gall in the first picture. It kind of looks like a soft sea urchin doesn't it? It feels just like it looks too. Yucky! The orangey tentacles growing out of the gall are called telias. These telias produce spores that are spread by the wind to the crabapple trees. Once on the crabapples the spores grow and produce lesions that are unsightly. In mid to late summer during dry hot weather, the lesions produce more spores called aeciospores. These spores are blown onto nearby junipers and the whole process starts all over again. Yuck!
The Cedar-apple rust fungus can be treated with fungicides. I have chosen not to spray fungicides in my garden, so I guess I'll just live with the fungus or cut it out of the tree when I can. I am hoping I avoided infection by cutting all the galls out of this tree. Time will tell. The best management practices include planting resistant varieties of trees when you are able to. This is not always the case and in fact, I think rarely is the case. Most junipers around here grow wild so how could you possibly determine which is resistant? The other junipers in my garden that I mentioned above show no signs of being infected, so perhaps they are resistant? I don't know, but I do know I will not part with this very mature juniper in my front garden. I accept this fungus since it will not kill my trees, simply disfigure them a wee bit, and they all recover. All gardeners have to decide for themselves what type of damage they will accept and use best practices to manage problems....

in the garden....