Oak Trees

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jack.diamond

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For the past few weeks, I have been posting some items regarding a couple of oak trees that have died due to oak wilt. There is now a third big tree that is dying. It poses no problem to the fences as did the others. But it got me to thinking, when is this going to stop or is it?? My place has a lot of nice tall straight oaks on it. Should I look into selling the timber before the wilt gets these too??

Jack
 
jack.diamond":2hsu3nng said:
For the past few weeks, I have been posting some items regarding a couple of oak trees that have died due to oak wilt. There is now a third big tree that is dying. It poses no problem to the fences as did the others. But it got me to thinking, when is this going to stop or is it?? My place has a lot of nice tall straight oaks on it. Should I look into selling the timber before the wilt gets these too??

Jack

I'm not familiar with oak wilt in Texas. We sell timber occasionally from our Classified Forest acres and yes, you should sell a tree that is going to die anyway.
 
Might want to contact state forestry people to see what could be done about saving the remaining trees. If you don't have a forestry dept.then maybe DNR or extention agent.
 
Oak Wilt is a disease similar in many ways to Dutch Elm disease. It is a fungus that is spread by insects and kills the tree by blocking its vascular tissues (which carry water and nutrients through the tree). I'd be careful to make sure that any trees that have died from this are burned. Otherwise the fungus remains on those trees and will be spread by pollinating insects. Good Luck.
 
Cattle Rack Rancher":26d36i5e said:
Oak Wilt is a disease similar in many ways to Dutch Elm disease. It is a fungus that is spread by insects and kills the tree by blocking its vascular tissues (which carry water and nutrients through the tree). I'd be careful to make sure that any trees that have died from this are burned. Otherwise the fungus remains on those trees and will be spread by pollinating insects. Good Luck.

CRR,

Thanks for the input. We have been under a burn ban here for the past few months, no can do right now. Most of the first tree is firewood, the small limbs I have piled for burning when possible. The other two trees will be dealt with the same way. Question: do you suppose a winter freeze will kill the fungus??

Jack
 
jack.diamond":s1grycpk said:
Cattle Rack Rancher":s1grycpk said:
Oak Wilt is a disease similar in many ways to Dutch Elm disease. It is a fungus that is spread by insects and kills the tree by blocking its vascular tissues (which carry water and nutrients through the tree). I'd be careful to make sure that any trees that have died from this are burned. Otherwise the fungus remains on those trees and will be spread by pollinating insects. Good Luck.

CRR,

Thanks for the input. We have been under a burn ban here for the past few months, no can do right now. Most of the first tree is firewood, the small limbs I have piled for burning when possible. The other two trees will be dealt with the same way. Question: do you suppose a winter freeze will kill the fungus??

Jack

No, it gets to -40 F up here on a fairly regular basis and it doesn't kill the Dutch Elm fungus. There are very stringent rules about what you do with the Elms even if you cut them on the property. They have to have the bark peeled and be kiln dried or burned. (although it is pretty lightly enforced).It surprises me that if this is a problem down there, that they wouldn't have stronger measures to stop it from spreading.
 
CRR is right on. If you prune oaks or if wind breaks geen branches, the bugs will invade and bring the virus with them.

Prune your oaks after the bugs are gone from frost. Once a tree gets oak wilt, it can spread to others through the root system. I had a tree get it. I dug a pit completely around it and cut it up. We have seen whole groves killed in this area.
 
backhoeboogie":1aedtrcz said:
CRR is right on. If you prune oaks or if wind breaks geen branches, the bugs will invade and bring the virus with them.

Prune your oaks after the bugs are gone from frost. Once a tree gets oak wilt, it can spread to others through the root system. I had a tree get it. I dug a pit completely around it and cut it up. We have seen whole groves killed in this area.

BHB,

I had to do some thinking on this one. Most of the oaks on the place don't getted pruned period. I just pick up the fallen limbs and try to mow around them. But, here's what clicked after the old 286 model brain got into gear. The county road crew trims (or better yet, butchers) the roadway with one of those tractor mounted trimmers. The entire county road was whacked about four or five months ago. This is done about once each year. Never had a problem until this year. Wonder if the county has gotten any other complaints regarding dying oak trees??

Jack
 
Drought is also a great stresser of oak trees. It doesn;t show up right away, usually a couple of years following the onset of serious drought. The also die of old age and the bugs get after them, but old age makes them more suceptible to disease.

dun
 
Dun is right. But if one tree in that proximity gets it, from drought or whatever, and then the county comes around butchering, bugs are going to spread it from one tree to the next one.

There is a neighbor about a mile away that had one cured. It was a huge oak in his front yard probably 100 years old. Seems it was $1600. They dug the dirt away from the roots and drilled and tapped the roots with pipe threads or the like. Then they pressure treated the tree with something. The pressure drives curing chemicals all the way up the tree.

Seems I also remember them telling me that if you ever cut the tree there will be a colored ring for the year it was pressure treated.

They saved that tree for those folks.

The tornadoes that came through here in May 2003 ripped up many of my oaks around my house. An old one right out back got a reverse mohawk. I got to thinking about those bugs and climbed up there with a pump up sprayer with insecticide. I sprayed anything that looked bare and everything else around the tree just to keep any bugs from hitting it. Must have worked.
 
dun":35z67fu3 said:
Drought is also a great stresser of oak trees. It doesn;t show up right away, usually a couple of years following the onset of serious drought. The also die of old age and the bugs get after them, but old age makes them more suceptible to disease.

dun

We have had droughts three out of the last four years. '04 was a boon for rain, about 50 inches. Average otherwise is around 22, with most of that in the early spring and late fall. Dun, I do hope it's just the drought and not some disease. I would like to think the county is more astute in knowing when to trim trees so as not to spread some tree killing fungus. The trees that are affected must be 50-60 years old.

Jack
 
The problem we had around here was the red oak borer. Got into a lot of stressed trees. They get in through the bark and then tunnel through to heart wood leaving tunnels about 1/4-3/8 in diameter. All the tree is any good for after that is firewood, and in some cases not much of that. Contrary to it's name, it shows no particualr preference for the red oak family, gobbles up white and post oaks too.
rob-1.jpg

dun
 
dun":1q5ww837 said:
The problem we had around here was the red oak borer. Got into a lot of stressed trees. They get in through the bark and then tunnel through to heart wood leaving tunnels about 1/4-3/8 in diameter. All the tree is any good for after that is firewood, and in some cases not much of that. Contrary to it's name, it shows no particualr preference for the red oak family, gobbles up white and post oaks too.

dun

I made firewood out of two trees so far. The heartwood in the trunk is solid. No sign of borers. The second tree had a little rot on some of the outer limbs. The root structure on both of these trees showed signs of what looks like rot, but once you get to the base of the trunk it's solid wood. The third tree which is still standing looked awfully healthy earlier. Had nice mushroom shape canopy and all. Now it's dead. It's next to come down.

Jack
 
jack.diamond":1r5nj0de said:
Cattle Rack Rancher":1r5nj0de said:
Oak Wilt is a disease similar in many ways to Dutch Elm disease. It is a fungus that is spread by insects and kills the tree by blocking its vascular tissues (which carry water and nutrients through the tree). I'd be careful to make sure that any trees that have died from this are burned. Otherwise the fungus remains on those trees and will be spread by pollinating insects. Good Luck.

CRR,

Thanks for the input. We have been under a burn ban here for the past few months, no can do right now. Most of the first tree is firewood, the small limbs I have piled for burning when possible. The other two trees will be dealt with the same way. Question: do you suppose a winter freeze will kill the fungus??

Jack

This is what I have heard and not what I know for fact. I made the comment to a friend of mine about cutting some dead oaks for firewoodand he said he had heard that you didn't want to do that because the live spores could rise with the smoke and spead to healthy trees even in another area. I had plenty of wood so I blew off the idea. Might be something that you need to check out before you burn any of it.Z
 
backhoeboogie":2x2kul4o said:
Dun is right. But if one tree in that proximity gets it, from drought or whatever, and then the county comes around butchering, bugs are going to spread it from one tree to the next one.

There is a neighbor about a mile away that had one cured. It was a huge oak in his front yard probably 100 years old. Seems it was $1600. They dug the dirt away from the roots and drilled and tapped the roots with pipe threads or the like. Then they pressure treated the tree with something. The pressure drives curing chemicals all the way up the tree.

Seems I also remember them telling me that if you ever cut the tree there will be a colored ring for the year it was pressure treated.

They saved that tree for those folks.

The tornadoes that came through here in May 2003 ripped up many of my oaks around my house. An old one right out back got a reverse mohawk. I got to thinking about those bugs and climbed up there with a pump up sprayer with insecticide. I sprayed anything that looked bare and everything else around the tree just to keep any bugs from hitting it. Must have worked.

BHB,

That's some expensive doctoring. I have three huge oaks in close proximity to the front of our house. My hammock hangs between two of them. These trees are at least four feet in diameter. I cringe when I think of tornados or just real big wind storms out of the South. During the summer months they offer so much shade and cool, I hate to think of cutting them down should they contract whatever killed the others.

JD
 
jack.diamond":3v2jwoe0 said:
BHB,

That's some expensive doctoring. I have three huge oaks in close proximity to the front of our house. My hammock hangs between two of them. These trees are at least four feet in diameter. I cringe when I think of tornados or just real big wind storms out of the South. During the summer months they offer so much shade and cool, I hate to think of cutting them down should they contract whatever killed the others.

JD

There are a couple next to the house that I save if I had to do so.
 
jack.diamond":1ezgg8w2 said:
For the past few weeks, I have been posting some items regarding a couple of oak trees that have died due to oak wilt. There is now a third big tree that is dying. It poses no problem to the fences as did the others. But it got me to thinking, when is this going to stop or is it?? My place has a lot of nice tall straight oaks on it. Should I look into selling the timber before the wilt gets these too??

Jack

From what I understand, it gets in the root systems so that any tree near the deseased one will get it too. I was told that you had to have the whole root system of the sick trees dug up. I saw a lot of it when I lived in Arlington. Huge trees just die. It is a real shame.
 
backhoeboogie":abn9jwuo said:
Dun is right. But if one tree in that proximity gets it, from drought or whatever, and then the county comes around butchering, bugs are going to spread it from one tree to the next one.

There is a neighbor about a mile away that had one cured. It was a huge oak in his front yard probably 100 years old. Seems it was $1600. They dug the dirt away from the roots and drilled and tapped the roots with pipe threads or the like. Then they pressure treated the tree with something. The pressure drives curing chemicals all the way up the tree.

Seems I also remember them telling me that if you ever cut the tree there will be a colored ring for the year it was pressure treated.

They saved that tree for those folks.

The tornadoes that came through here in May 2003 ripped up many of my oaks around my house. An old one right out back got a reverse mohawk. I got to thinking about those bugs and climbed up there with a pump up sprayer with insecticide. I sprayed anything that looked bare and everything else around the tree just to keep any bugs from hitting it. Must have worked.

What they pump into the trees is a fungicide. Same treatment they use for the important elms up here and yes its a very expensive process. As I say the problem is sort of two fold. You have a tree killing fungus that is spread by insects, As far as spores rising when you burn the wood, I'd be skeptical. Fungus needs moisture to live and even wet wood dries out before it burns. Anyway, far better to burn it then leave it laying around so the insects can spread it. If its Oak Wilt (caused by a fungus), the first sign you'll see is just one or two branches where the leaves turn brown and (its called 'flagging). By that time its too late unless you want to try to save the tree by pumping it full of fungicide, otherwise better to take it down before it spreads and yes, it does spread through root systems as well as by insects. Good Luck.
 
Cattle Rack Rancher":xn3t1dvz said:
backhoeboogie":xn3t1dvz said:
Dun is right. But if one tree in that proximity gets it, from drought or whatever, and then the county comes around butchering, bugs are going to spread it from one tree to the next one.

There is a neighbor about a mile away that had one cured. It was a huge oak in his front yard probably 100 years old. Seems it was $1600. They dug the dirt away from the roots and drilled and tapped the roots with pipe threads or the like. Then they pressure treated the tree with something. The pressure drives curing chemicals all the way up the tree.

Seems I also remember them telling me that if you ever cut the tree there will be a colored ring for the year it was pressure treated.

They saved that tree for those folks.

The tornadoes that came through here in May 2003 ripped up many of my oaks around my house. An old one right out back got a reverse mohawk. I got to thinking about those bugs and climbed up there with a pump up sprayer with insecticide. I sprayed anything that looked bare and everything else around the tree just to keep any bugs from hitting it. Must have worked.

What they pump into the trees is a fungicide. Same treatment they use for the important elms up here and yes its a very expensive process. As I say the problem is sort of two fold. You have a tree killing fungus that is spread by insects, As far as spores rising when you burn the wood, I'd be skeptical. Fungus needs moisture to live and even wet wood dries out before it burns. Anyway, far better to burn it then leave it laying around so the insects can spread it. If its Oak Wilt (caused by a fungus), the first sign you'll see is just one or two branches where the leaves turn brown and (its called 'flagging). By that time its too late unless you want to try to save the tree by pumping it full of fungicide, otherwise better to take it down before it spreads and yes, it does spread through root systems as well as by insects. Good Luck.

CRR,

Thanks, I plan on taking down the third tree as soon as possible. The limbs will burn once the county lifts the burn ban. I'll take a good look at all the trees to see if there is any flagging on them and talk to the neighbors as well to see if they have any trees dying. I don't think I can do much for it spreading through the root systems, but what insects would carry the fungus?? Maybe I could spray some insecticides.

Jack
 

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