Hello. I moved into a property last year, about 1/2 of the 1 acre lot is wooded, and have been assessing the condition of the various Oaks here.
This one in particular, I was working my leaf blower clearing some leaves about a month ago (March), and as I passed the blower by this Oak, a piece of the bark at the bottom just blew right off.
Odd I thought...
I took a hammer and started testing different areas of the Oak, sounding out for hollow and solid areas, and the portion I have now removed as seen in the pic was all hollow sounding. The surrounding areas are all still solid sounding.
As I removed the bark, all the wood directly underneath the bark in the hollow area was rotten and spongy like Balsa wood, down to a slimy black layer as the pic shows. Under the slime coat it is solid sounding (the inner tree)
There is also a white moldy layer directly under the bark. The black layer was 2-3 'layers' in.
I have no idea what this is, I have been doing some internet reading but to no distinct avail.
What I believe is that the smaller tree stump you can see in the pics has stressed the Oak by growing so closely to it, almost directly into it. I cut the offending (much smaller) tree down last fall.
Thanks for any help and advise!
PS, for some reason, this seems like almost a 'pattern' on this lot, what I believe to be smaller Maples (I could be wrong) are growing almost directly out of the main Oak trunks, there are another 4-5 scenarios around the propert where almost exactly the same thing is happening that you can see in the pic, and I think these Maples are highly stressing the Oaks by delivering girdling roots that surround the Oaks and stress them. None of the others has this 'rot', but one is leaning heavily and looks very unhealthy, another isn't leaning so much, but has some obvious girdling roots from the Maple surrounding it...it's pretty weird how it seems like a distinctive pattern has formed, the Maples growing right at the base of the Oaks and stressing them very much...I hope someone can shed some light and give some sound advise , especially as to what to do with this hurting Oak.
This one in particular, I was working my leaf blower clearing some leaves about a month ago (March), and as I passed the blower by this Oak, a piece of the bark at the bottom just blew right off.
Odd I thought...
I took a hammer and started testing different areas of the Oak, sounding out for hollow and solid areas, and the portion I have now removed as seen in the pic was all hollow sounding. The surrounding areas are all still solid sounding.
As I removed the bark, all the wood directly underneath the bark in the hollow area was rotten and spongy like Balsa wood, down to a slimy black layer as the pic shows. Under the slime coat it is solid sounding (the inner tree)
There is also a white moldy layer directly under the bark. The black layer was 2-3 'layers' in.
I have no idea what this is, I have been doing some internet reading but to no distinct avail.
What I believe is that the smaller tree stump you can see in the pics has stressed the Oak by growing so closely to it, almost directly into it. I cut the offending (much smaller) tree down last fall.
Thanks for any help and advise!
PS, for some reason, this seems like almost a 'pattern' on this lot, what I believe to be smaller Maples (I could be wrong) are growing almost directly out of the main Oak trunks, there are another 4-5 scenarios around the propert where almost exactly the same thing is happening that you can see in the pic, and I think these Maples are highly stressing the Oaks by delivering girdling roots that surround the Oaks and stress them. None of the others has this 'rot', but one is leaning heavily and looks very unhealthy, another isn't leaning so much, but has some obvious girdling roots from the Maple surrounding it...it's pretty weird how it seems like a distinctive pattern has formed, the Maples growing right at the base of the Oaks and stressing them very much...I hope someone can shed some light and give some sound advise , especially as to what to do with this hurting Oak.