When planting fruit trees, growers have only one opportunity to minimize problems with crown gall for the life of the orchard. Crown gall can be an important pathogen that, when present, will limit tree growth and productivity.
Stone fruits are particularly susceptible, especially mazzard rootstocks.
To protect against crown gall, two steps can be taken. First, plant only crown gall free trees. If trees arrive with galls present, realize that just removing the galls will not remove all infections. Some latent infections are likely to be present that have not yet caused the gall formation. Second, plan to inoculate roots with a biological control agent immediately prior to planting if planting into soil with the crown gall pathogen present, whenever stone fruits are replanted into old stone fruit sites.