Scabs are a fungal disease that cause fruits, leaves, and roots to obtain hardened tissue. Sometimes the tissue will crack. This is a major problem for fruits such as apple, crabapple, peach, and nectarines. It can infect other plants through the leaves, but usually sticks to fruit trees.
The disease is prevalent in rainy season. Rain tends to release the spores into the air. And once it lands on a susceptible plant, the water on the plant aids the growth of the disease on the new host.
Good control is generally easy if you plant resistant varieties.
Another idea is to spray every few weeks with vegetable oil or another horticultural oil to prevent infection in the first place. Or make a mix of 1 tsp baking soda, 2 drops of dish soap per 2 quarts of water. Spray on your plants. Of course, for trees, you'll need alot more than that so I'd mix half cup of baking soda, 1 tsp soap, and the rest water in a hose-end sprayer and spray my trees that way. If you have a huge orchard, you'll need to adjust for use in the machinery you usually use to spray your trees.
You can use copper or sulfur, but these also kill beneficial organisms. Extensive use of copper will affect plant growth. So try the other methods and use these two as last resorts.
As always, fall cleanup is important, prune for circulation, and use solutions BEFORE evidence of infection.
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