- Blighted branch tips
- Lesion at base of infection
- Tiny black spores in lesion
Kabatina juniperi causes tip blight on members of the Cypress family, including eastern red-cedar, creeping juniper, and Rocky Mountain juniper, to name but a few species. To the naked eye, Kabatina blight symptoms are identical to Phomopsis blight symptoms and create small black bumps on the stem at the base of browned needles, with a grey canker between healthy and diseased tissue. Symptoms of Kabatina infection appear on new growth the following year in early spring. Phomopsis symptoms become visible between late spring and the end of summer, on new growth from the same season. Send samples to a plant disease diagnostic lab for confirmation.
The fungus grows within the needles, without causing symptoms, for an entire season after infection. Diseased needles gradually fade from green to greyish-brown in early spring.
Maintain space around plants to allow air circulation and drying of the canopy. Irrigate in the morning when foliage has time to dry. Minimize plant stress and wounding as this increases susceptibility. Maintain proper soil fertility and control insects, like spider mites, that feed on branch tips. Prune out blighted branches, making sure to remove a few inches of healthy tissue behind the canker to make sure all of the pathogen has been removed. No chemical controls are registered for use against Kabatina. Several varieties of juniper are resistant to this disease, and include but are not limited to Ames, Hertzii Coumnaris, and Mountbatten.
Active Ingredients include: Copper salts, Propiconazole, Thiophanate-methyl
