Owning a garden and nurturing your plants involves understanding potential challenges that may emerge. If you discover something unusual called the “jelly nut” in your garden, here’s what to know.
Recently, a Reddit user from Oklahoma spotted something strange in his garden—a bright “yellow goo” on his trees and an odd, jelly-like object he dubbed a “gelatinous alien nut.” Unsure of its nature, he asked the Reddit community for help, noting that the affected tree was a conifer, though he couldn’t specify the type. Almost immediately, someone recognized it as “cedar and apple rust,” a disease that requires two host plants to complete its life cycle, mainly impacting apple and crabapple trees.
The symptoms differ by tree type. On junipers, small brown galls appear on twigs, forming orange, jelly-like horns in spring, especially in wet weather. Although branches beyond the gall may die, the impact on the juniper is generally mild.
On apple and crabapple trees, yellow circular spots emerge on leaves soon after they flower. By late summer, brown cylindrical structures develop beneath these spots, on twigs, or on fruit. Galls from the disease can take months to develop, showing up about seven months post-infection.
After 18 months, these galls become gelatinous. In spring, they form depressions like golf balls, sprouting bright orange, spore-filled telial horns during rain. Once spores release, the horns wither, though galls may cling to the tree for another year.
To manage this disease, pruning affected areas or letting it run its course are both viable options, as it rarely kills trees but may cause some distortion. Preventive measures, like using fungicides or selecting resistant apple varieties, can also be effective.