KJ, Morning Sentinel highlight Extension information about black knot

The Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel highlighted information about black knot fungus from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension for an article about it infecting several cherry trees in the city of Augusta. The fungus in particular spread across 14 cherry trees in Monument Park, which city officials plan to remove, according to the article. Black knot, according to UMaine Extension’s Plant Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, is “one of the most common diseases” among cherry and plum trees in the state. “This disease appears as obvious hard black elongated swellings (knots) which may be one-to-six inches or more in length,” according to the lab. “These knots are scattered throughout the tree with the number increasing in successive years if the disease is left untreated.”