Question
I have a three year old plum tree, fruit bearing. I use tangle foot to keep the
ants off the tree, but there was a breach for a few days while I was away, and
it got infested with ants and their little friends the aphids. I restored the
barrier, killed the aphids with BT and pruned off the infected branches which
already had leaf curl. Regrettably the tree seems to have caught a disease.
There are little brown spots on the leaves and some leaves are turning yellow
and dropping, and I have still some leaf curl.

So the aphids and ants are gone, but the tree is infected. I figured it might be
good to spray the tree with a fungicide which I did. I am concerned not only
about this tree but the several other plum, cherry and peach trees nearby.
How would you advise I proceed? For now anyway the new growth on the very
tips of the branches still looks good, but most of the leaves have the spots
(curiously worse on one side of the tree then the other).

Your advice will be greatly appreciated, I started this tree as a little tiny twig
and really love it. It is also going to bear fruit this year, although I will cut of
the still tiny plums if it helps the tree obviously.

Yours truly,

Tony  

Answer
Hi Tony..the thing that stands out most to me is ants live where water is not.  Fruit trees like water, minimum of 3 inches per week to get blooms and keep your fruit on.  Yellow leaves is a sign of not enough water.  Unhappy trees attract bugs.  Use organicide or Neem Oil to help with the bug problem