Fire in the Hole!!!!!

[Triloba Tracker]

I've worked myself into a little paranoia around overwintering fungal spores carried by dead leaves.

A few of my trees were hit hard with Diplocarpon fungus and naturally their leaves fell to the mulched area around the tree base.

Of course i have removed the dead leaves (pretty religiously), but my paranoid mind is thinking they have shed trillions of nasty spores onto the wood mulch, and these will infect the plant next season.

So i had the crazy idea of torching the area with my Weed Dragon flamethrower. It's one of the "homeowner" ones, not super high-powered.

So here are my questions:
1) is my paranoia unfounded? i.e. Is removing the dead leaves good enough?
2) would the quick heat even kill spores anyway?
3) would it damage shallow feeder roots of the tree?

I guess I could remove all the mulch under the tree and replace with clean mulch, but clearly that's a lot of work and more expense (though not totally out of the question).

[Triloba Tracker]

No thoughts, pointing and laughing, or even nasty heckling in response?

[jako9403]

I don’t really think the torch can do anything good. I’d advice applying antifungal (If the area isn’t too big). Maybe no trestment is needed at all? It’s tough fighting fungus.

[Triloba Tracker]

Thanks for the thoughts!