What's Wrong With Your Trees??
Pennsylvania
The leaves on my chestnut trees and butternut trees are all black at he tips. Must have gotten frozen last Monday when we had frost.
Yeah, they have been spraying for years, but there are still areas that have been defoliated pretty bad.
Spider1 posted a pic while turkey hunting that showed nothing but dead trees over in Monroe county this year.
Yeah, we got hit bad with Gypsy Moths the last 10 years or so. ABout 5 years ago they started spraying our woods. We still had lots of Gypsy Moths after they started spraying, but less and less each year. I have seen very little this year. For a few years, it was so bad there was caterpillars and droppings all over the cars, deck, swingset etc.......... If you were quiet and listened when sitting on our back deck, you could actually hear the droppings coming down out of the trees as they hit the leaves below!
If they had not sprayed for several years, I'm sure we would have lost most, if not all of our Oaks!
The Eastern Forest Tent Caterpillers are pretty much decimating the forests in Potter County right now.
If it's only along the road, I would place the blame on road salt. The salt water get's sprayed up onto them as big rigs fly down the pike. I work on the pike and have seen it for years. And the speed limit is 65 on the pike:)
I've lost most of the elm trees on my property the last couple years from blight.
Corn did it! The trees where growing to close to Corn fields!
The Gypsy moths hit hard for the last 5 years. Half the oaks in the SGL I hunt are dead. Good news is the ground is littered with saplings. Beech, white and chestnut oak, maple and poplar.
When I've traveled on I-80 for the last few years I've noticed how the tent caterpillars have damaged the trees. Gypsy moths will annihilate an area wiping out groups of trees as they move starting with the oaks. The tent caterpillars will cover a tree and work it one section at a time until it's dead.
They have trees out there in Illinois? All I ever seen was corn.
Will there be a test later?
Where in the heck is Grawford Co PA? Dat where dey make Coors Light?:) I thunk treerat needs a pellen test:)
A lot of our trees got nipped by frost. Especially noticeable are the oaks. The baby leaves are turning brown and dropping off then they'll leave out again. Same thing happened last year. Hopefully they can recover two years in a row.
Ya it happened to my Black Walnut tree also.
I just made the same trip last week and noticed the same thing. Looked more like some kind of spraying to me than natural damage from pests. It seemed to only effect the first 50 yards or so of the trees parallel to the interstate. There was a distinct line between effected and not effected trees and brush. it also seems to be worse in areas of construction where they were widening the road. almost liked they sprayed the trees in advance of bulldozing them away for construction. If it wasn't spaying, I would maybe guess that the trees on the edge of the forest froze out but the the ones in from the edge did not. Maybe when they spray for gypsy moths they have to stay back from the edge of the interstate so far and that might explain it.
It is from road salt. Trust me here.
The trees I saw effected were way off the road. 50 plus yards up high banks. No way salt got them. I saw brush and trees close to the road too and in the medial strip but these distinct strips of dead/dying trees were much too far from the road for salt.
Not to far from heavy diesel fumes and synthetic rubber 'dust' though. If you look closely enough...you'll notice abberant growth patterns indicative of a real sick plant.
There was a significant killer frost though, forget the date, have it scribbled in my day journal for gardening concerns. No air movement that night, zero cloud cover, and even though it didn't get all that cold, the rapidty of the radiation heat loss, at precisely the wrong time of morning, at precisely the wrong point in pretty screwed up early growing season anyway, was severe enough to knock the top half out of the stinging nettle, and yes in places burn back the first leaves on the oak. Good news is, at least in NC PA, they had not bloomed yet, and it now looks the 'set', which IS sometimes better under slight duress, is very good.
Tent catapillars are horrible this year..and I thought it couldn't get worse than last year. My white oak looks to be on the ropes.
Along the roads in my travels recently, every tree I saw that was bald of leaves, or nearly so, was Black Locust. So I'm prone to lay the blame on the Locust Leafminer.
Jeff, along the T-pike, its oaks and just about every tree that is affected. I side with Roy in the case of the T-pike, road salt in a mist that is able to be blown by traffic and winds.
Its bad on the hills and up by Somerset, where more salt might be used.
Right now tho, northern PA, in parts, is being defoliated by the forest tent caterpiller.
Probably right, Brad. I ain't been on the turnpike in a coon's age. The Leafminer attacks other trees too, but to a much lesser degree. Salt, and whatever else they put on our roads ain't no good for the greenery.
Speaking of tent catipillars, when I got out of the truck in Potter last week, it was raining catipoop. The hillside across the road was about 70% leafless.
The infestation has spread a great deal since last year.
Was mostly NW Potter last year, now the entire county and over into Tioga.
Populations are collapsing in the original locations.
This is the third year of infestation for my area of Potter. Last year was terrible.
That stinks. Is it killing the trees?
Healthy trees can take 2-3 years of defoliation. Defoliate the trees and have it happen in a drought and things can get dicey.
This is the first year of infestation south of rt 6 in Potter, for the most part. This is the third year for the area I hunt north of rt 6. Can only guess it'll get worse next year in some areas?
Great.
On my drive up, I noticed ocassional trees on facing hillsides that were affected, but very minimal, and not a whole hillside until I walked up to the camp, turned around and looked at the hillside across the road. It was bad. Virtually leafless.
As reported above, a lot of the damage is Forest Tent Caterpiller, (which interestingly does not really build tents) but there are several other issues as well, including some gypsy moth, emerald ash borer, and more. Actually, I believe it is still a little early for the gypsy moths (for this year). Last year I wrote a column about the "Forest Tent Caterpillers and other Carawling Things" and it was published (I think June 16) At that time I wrote (perhaps a week before due to deadlines) and had confirmed it was still too early for gypsy moths then. I was also told by a forestry staff person that there were two primary culprits, with the Forest Tent Caterpillar being the worst, but I cannot remember what the other one was named.
Brad is right, healthy rees can take defoliation 2-3 years, but during drought, illness, or other stress, all bets are off.
We did have severe frost damage and also some freeze damage. On the oaks, the brown leaves are the leftovers from last fall that have not yet dropped. The frost or freeze killed leaves turn black or dark grey and quickly become very powdery or will crumble. The brown leaves died at the end of their life cycle and are often almost leathery in texture. The black or grey leaves are much smaller, usually badly curled, and were killed, (as opposed to dying).
Other trees and plants were hit too, but oaks seemed some of the worst. Domestic Rose of Sharon shrubs were hit in a way similar to the oaks.Trumpet vine had just started pushing leaves and they were also killed. They have since leafed out as did the oaks and Rose of Sharon.
We are losing all of our Douglas Fir trees. Don't know why. They are about 15-20 feet tall. We are in the South Eastern part of Pa. chester County. All the needles are gone and branches are dead.
