Italian cvpress trees

Question from Pat:
I have 27 Italian cvpress trees lining a long driveway of a property in Mendocino Co.I bought 2 years ago. I’ve had different diagnoses re straggly demeanor for all this time. Now some of the trunks have vertical gashes and some of these ooze sap. Other places ooze sap without the gashes. I have tried varying the watering sched. according to advise to assuage drought here and most recently watered heavily every two weeks. Have also tried aceterol. No response. I can send pictures of trunks. Thanks, Pat

Answer from Pat:
I am sorry to tell you that Italian cypress trees are subject to a large number of pests and diseases especially in damp moist weather. This is most likely why you have received a number of different diagnoses. Oozing sap may be the result of borers or long slashes such as you describe might be caused by canker. Damp weather and overhead watering can spread the disease. Cankers that are long, dark or black in color and swollen and oozing a lot of sap sap often occur on branches. This disease problem is known as branch canker and is caused by a fungus, Seiridium cardinale. Unfortunately, there is no known cure for these branch cankers. The best advice I can offer is to cut out and remove any infected branches, always disinfecting pruning tools between each cut in order not to spread the disease. After cleaning up the trees as best you can, you might try spraying repeatedly in dry weather with Serenade, but I am not at all sure this would do any good. For the gashes on the trunk, you could look for borers and dig them out if you find them.