Loquat Tree Problems

Pests

• Loquat trees can die or develop diseases from various pest infestations. Fruit flies, scale insects and aphids eat the fruit, bark, leaves and other parts of the tree. Birds can also pick at the fruit and destroy the tree. Purdue University says people in some countries protect their trees by covering them with cloth, paper bags or wire netting

Diseases

• Loquat trees can become susceptible to diseases such as collar rot, root rot, pear blight and stem-brown disease. Collar and root rot results from a parasitic fungus known as Diplodia natalensis. D. eriobotrya. Sometimes harvesters can halt diseases by cutting off damaged leaves and branches, but this depends on the type of disease affecting the tree. Pear blight can kill trees by destroying the fruit, bark and other parts of the tree quickly. Stem-brown disease occurs from a fungus called Batryosphaeria dothidee.

Harvesting

• Some problems can also arise when harvesting loquat trees. The University of Purdue says determining the ripeness of the fruit is difficult and unripe fruits don't taste good because of excess acid. It takes about 90 days for the fruit to reach full maturity and harvesters try to rely on the color of the fruit to determine ripeness and overall quality. Harvesting the fruit is not easy because each piece of fruit has a thick, dense stalk, which is firmly attach to the cluster. It's vital to cut the stalk with a sharp knife or pruning shears. Additional work is needed to carefully cut each piece of fruit from the cluster of fruits once it's been removed because selling whole clusters of fruit is not marketable, according to the University of Purdue. Loquat fruit only stays fresh at room temperature for ten days after picking, so it's vital to sell the fruit right away.

Other Problems

• Other problems can cause loquat fruit to go bad quickly, such as "purple spot." This is also referred to as sunburn because the fruit becomes spotted from too much exposure to heat during long, hot summers. Sometimes harvesters attempt to spray the fruit with chemicals to slow the ripening the process and get through the summer. An additional problem with loquat trees is that ingestion of the seeds can have a mild toxic effect on a person, resulting in sedation.