Identification Symptoms

  • A slow decline and a sudden death of plant have been recorded in litchi. It can affect the whole tree or just one or two branches.
  • The symptoms include a sudden branch wilt that is followed by the decline of new growth on the affected branch over a period. In other situations, the tips die without wilting.
  • The tree or branch may recover temporarily, but subsequently dies. Parts of the tree flush and grow, while other sections die.
  • In some parts of litchi belt, trees are killed by the root rot.
  • One side of the tree’s crown may be perfectly sound and the other totally necrosis.
  • Leaf shed never occurs (it does in the case of a nematode attack) and the internal parts of the roots are characteristically red in colour
  • No method has been found to save the tree once it has become infected