Cankers on Liquid Ambers.

[beastmaster]

I have been working on some liquid amber trees that appear to have large cankers on the main leaders. Some of them it looks like were leaking at one point and are stained. The whole tree seems like it has white blotches covering the whole tree that is a part of the bark, not an obvious fungus or mold on the bark. It's not the natural coloring of any sweet gums I've ever seen.
The trees have no leaves right now, but is starting to bud out, but looks a little sparse. I check out the best I could canker diseases of liquid ambers, but most the information is on Eastern and southern trees, I'm in So. Calif. These trees are a few miles from the ocean. The soil there growing in is kept to wet from irrigation, and makes me wonder if the cankers could be caused by some soil pathogen
Is there any treatment for cankers? I heard antibiotic injections may help. Is this true. I also heard using a torch and lightly burning them can help sometimes.
I'm not diagnosing the trees or consulting, just trimming them some, but I'd still like to get any info, especially from someone in the southwest on what is ailing these trees and a prognoses.
If anyone is interested I'll take some photos tomorrow. Thanks

 

[beastmaster]

Here's something interesting, The Olive tree on the same property, has the same white blotches on it. It also has a lot of die back and we were suspecting Xylella fastidiosa on it. This 1st picture is of the sycamore's blotches. This is the olive's. Here's some of the cankers on the sycamore . The blotches are discoloration in the bark. Looks almost like dry spots. There are several other kinds of trees that are doing fine, but the olive and 3 sycamores are showing symptoms of something. I know xylella will effect both species. But would it cause cankers and the spots?

 

[Ed Roland]

Part of the fun of sleuthing out a diagnosis is stringent testing of viable material. I would not sweat the blotches as they appear to be lichen colonies, which if anything, only suggests slow growth. Moss does not gather on a rolling stone and its unusual to find lichens on fast growing wood. Slow growth = stress/dysfunction?
If it helps diagnosis, the actual term for what you have shown is "lesion" and not "canker".
Good luck
ed