Apple Branches are Peeing?

[GeorgieTheBunny]

I give my Georgie apple branches, typically from my mother’s trees, she loves them. My mother doesn’t use pesticides and uses the hose to clean them and let’s them dry in the sun before bringing them over.

A neighbour friend has started bringing me branches now too. Just yesterday she brought me a bundle. I decided to rinse them in the shower, as I have an apartment….

What the heck!?
The branches seem to be rinsing off or leeching out yellow pigment.

Is that normal?

[Bam]

That’s really weird. I rinsed an apple branch with leaves in the shower now, just to see if there was any yellow pigment, but there wasn’t. I give my buns Apple twigs with leaves more or less every day in the summer, bare twigs in winter.
Could it be from some aphids or sth? Or sth moss/lichen-like on the bark?

[GeorgieTheBunny]

I believe I just managed to upload photos via my site on my tablet:

Edit: I have to go read the darn help pages…. Brb

[GeorgieTheBunny]

http://cherylk.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/image-e1472608169515.jpeg

[GeorgieTheBunny]

Thanks Bam.
I’m grateful that the community and its members, y-o-u in this case, are so willing to give advice on their experience and also follow thorough on weird stuff like this on behalf of learning/curiosity/bunny health/my piece of mind.

Okay, images are up. This is what’s happening.

The first picture is me rinsing away the pigment that had settled during drip drying and the second shot shows how the yellow pigment looks when it’s fresh tapped off the branch.

It seems to come from “open wounds” on the branch. Like it’s a sap or sth bleeding out of the cut blunt ends – maybe, I think.

I’ve rinsed this 6 times. The leaves are dried but the layers just under the bark is still green and fresh.

Again – anyone else know something?

[LBJ10]

When you say open wounds, are you talking about where it was cut? Or do the branches have cankers on them?

If it’s simply coming from cuts that were made, then it’s likely that this tree is simply a bleeder and the yellow you are seeing is sap.

[Bam]

I’d agree with LBJ. If it comes from the ends it’s probably sap. Apple trees can have cankers on them, it’s caused by a fungal infection (that only affects plants, not animals or humans) but I don’t know if they’d leak yellow fluid. I try to avoid giving branches/twigs that have cankers on them, or lichen/moss.

[LBJ10]

Cankers can cause the tree to ooze sap. I agree, I would avoid giving branches with cankers on them. Some lichen is edible, others are poisonous. It’s best to avoid that too.

[GeorgieTheBunny]

The sap (not branch pee) is coming from the ends, glad I can confirm with somebody. I thought it was weird.

I didn’t know that some lichen was poisonous! Thank you for the heads up, I didn’t know I had to be quite so careful.

[LBJ10]

Most lichens aren’t poisonous. But it’s good to be safe. As for the sap, if it’s coming from where the branches were cut then the tree was probably just a “bleeder”. I wouldn’t be too concerned about that.

[Author]

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