Plant diseases
Leaf spots, fruit rot, wilt and unusual plant growth or color can all be symptoms of a plant disease problem.
Identify the insect, disease or nonliving factors that are causing problems in your garden by submitting a question to Ask a Master Gardener or send a diseased plant sample to the UMN Plant Disease Clinic.
Managing plant diseases in the home garden provides basic garden care information that will help you prevent and control plant diseases and damage caused by insects and environmental factors in your home garden.
See Clean and disinfect gardening tools and containers for tips on preventing the spread of diseases through tools.
Find more information about common plant disease problems below.
Diseases of apple
- Apple scab of apples and crabapples
- Black rot of apple
- Cedar-apple rust and related rust diseases
- Fire blight
- Sooty blotch and flyspeck
Diseases of blueberry
Diseases of raspberry
- Gray mold of strawberry and raspberry
- Late leaf rust on raspberry
- Orange rust on raspberry
- Raspberry cane diseases
- Raspberry leaf spot
- Viruses of backyard fruit
Diseases of stone fruit
Diseases of strawberry
- Angular leaf spot of strawberry
- Anthracnose fruit rot of strawberry
- Black root rot of strawberry
- Gray mold of strawberry and raspberry
- Leaf blight of strawberry
- Leaf scorch of strawberry
- Leaf spot of strawberry
- Leather rot of strawberry
These integrated pest management guides for home gardeners recommend disease and insect control strategies for home fruit growing. They are multi-page, downloadable PDFs.
Many common tree diseases do not affect the overall health of the tree and trees can tolerate them.
You can reduce the impact of some tree diseases through proper care and pruning.
Hire a tree care professional to apply fungicide treatments, prune large trees and remove trees.
Diseases and conditions that can affect many trees
Diseases of deciduous trees and shrubs
- Anthracnose in trees and shrubs
- Apple scab of apples and crabapples
- Black knot
- Black rot of apple
- Cedar-apple rust and related rust diseases
- Dutch elm disease
- Eutypella canker
- Fire blight
- Golden canker of pagoda dogwood
- Hypoxylon canker
- Leaf spot diseases of trees and shrubs
- Lilac issues and diseases
- Oak wilt
- Powdery mildew on trees and shrubs
- Sooty blotch and flyspeck
Diseases of evergreen trees and shrubs
- Brown spot needle blight
- Cedar-apple rust and related rust diseases
- Cytospora canker
- Diplodia shoot blight and canker
- Dothistroma needle blight
- Dwarf mistletoe
- Lirula needle blight
- Pine gall rusts
- Pine needle rust
- Rhizosphaera needle cast
- Sirococcus blight of conifers
- Spruce needle rust
- Tomentosus root rot
- White pine blister rust
Stay up to date
- Read Yard and Garden News.
- Listen to the Smart Gardenspodcast and radio show.
- Watch Hort Shorts on YouTube.