Cultural control (Apple canker)

• Remove Neonectria cankers from orchards during winter pruning. Smaller cankers can be pruned out completely. Larger cankers on the trunk or scaffold branches can be pared back to healthy tissue and treated with a suitable wound protectant paint immediately after.
• Cut out shoot dieback due to canker in the spring.
• Avoid pruning in wet conditions.
• Un-macerated (un-pulverised) cankered prunings left in the tree row can continue to produce spores (ascospores) for at least 1-2 years and therefore are a canker risk.
• In areas where conditions favour canker, remove prunings from the orchard and burn.
• If this is considered too costly, alternatively dump all prunings, including young shoots, in the grass alleyway and pulverise to ensure rapid decay.
• Repeated mowing of grass and prunings will increase the speed of breakdown.
• Avoid dumping young cankered shoots in the tree row as these can generate more inoculum.
• Remove mummified fruit from trees and from under trees and either remove from orchard or throw into alleyway to be macerated.
• Prune trees to open and encourage air circulation to improve tree drying out and reduce surface moisture and conditions favourable for canker.
• Avoid use of high nitrogen, especially farmyard manure as that will encourage canker.