We have a pin oak in our front yard that we had planted 14 years ago. Last year some of the leaves towards the house started turning a pale green to a yellow. I fertilized with tree stakes, but it didn't help because this year the same thing is happening. Any help would be useful.
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Trouble with Leaves on a Pin Oak
- Thread starter SoapGal
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Kneejerk Bombas
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One possibility is soil pH, these trees like a low pH and one symptom of too high a pH is yellowing leaves. You can take a soil and foliage sample in to your local university extention office for testing, which cost about $15 to $30.
It could also be the lower limbs are just getting shaded out by the upper limbs. Pin Oaks grow so densely that it's common to have loads of dead limbs in the crown, and these dead limbs will often turn yellow before dying.
Oaks will often show signs of stress due to root damage by turning yellow (White Oak mostly comes to mind). Has there been any construction, filling or digging nearby?
Does the base of the tree flare out just as it enters the ground, all the way around?
A picture is worth a thousand words, can you post one?
It could also be the lower limbs are just getting shaded out by the upper limbs. Pin Oaks grow so densely that it's common to have loads of dead limbs in the crown, and these dead limbs will often turn yellow before dying.
Oaks will often show signs of stress due to root damage by turning yellow (White Oak mostly comes to mind). Has there been any construction, filling or digging nearby?
Does the base of the tree flare out just as it enters the ground, all the way around?
A picture is worth a thousand words, can you post one?
Guy Meilleur
Addicted to ArboristSite
Oaks are ring-porous, so if the branches on one side are not healthy that likely means the roots on one side are not healthy.Originally posted by SoapGal
some of the leaves towards the house started turning a pale green to a yellow.
Mike is right in urging you to look at the root area (which goes beyond the branch tips) on the house side of your tree, and improve the soil there. See www.treesaregood.com for info on what you can do.
I can offer a cosmetic treatment that will help thru this Summer and keep the guy alive through the Winter - but it's palliative until the reason for the chlorosis is discovered.
Chelated Iron. From the nursery.
Root damage, either from a cultural impact or insect/parasitic problem might be the source, it takes a bit of sniffing around to eliminate probables. Construction maybe, an old application of a break-down resistant pesticide or lingering chemical damage (killing off beneficial cannibal nematodes for example), or a popular one in Northern climates - L.P. or natural gas leak. Landscape changes in ground cover or ammendments for beauty that create soil chemistry changes? Granite or limestone, charcoal or pine or needle mulch? Treated sand or de-icing agents on the walks from wintertime? Anti-rotting chemicals leaching off timbers? Railroad ties?
Are you a beer drinker and it's easier to pee outside than upstairs to the bathroom? Dogs? Llamas? Cats? Outflow from the septic or grey water discharge from the washin' machine? Irrigation overload? Fungally-odiferous slimely mush smell? White dusty crusty icky under the surface of the dirt/mulch?
Roofing materials, if remodeled lately? Gypsum from sheetrock or mortar mix and paint-brush washing outside at the base of it? Fuel or oil from the lawnmower dumped?
Slow changes in soil pH make some massive differences in available iron, among other probabilities. It's an bio-chemical thing, we can address it synthetically but only for a time. Go out there and snoop around and buy some iron that's readily absorbed, and get back to us.
Hey Guy - you're right pretty much but I've been watching the cork-screw principle in Post and burr oaks in heavy competition forests, either from mutational response from certain herbicide componants or some sort of physical anamoly, but what's often on the lower south-side (or side thereof) root reach isn't what's on the upper north-side of the canopy. It makes for some amazingly strong tensile timber but it freaks-out the standards as we understand them, of growth physics.
Someone showed me an ozone hypothesis, whatever it's worth. Concerned about relative radiational differences and changes affecting genetic responses to disease susceptability, I'm checking it out more and more. SPF for trees? Maybe. Trying a shot of an anti-dissicant with some pigment that might absorbe more spectrum light, another that would deflect certain colors, see what happens. Maybe in relation to wilt, here something might've been knocking loudly on the researchers but they failed to hear it. Wilt's always been a native dweller but only in the last 15 years has it presented itself with such brute force. Same with the epidemics only a few scientists have implicated pollution with that are destroying forests everywhere - including insect events.
In the meatime, buy the iron and pepper the fellow. Then go out there and mess about.
Chelated Iron. From the nursery.
Root damage, either from a cultural impact or insect/parasitic problem might be the source, it takes a bit of sniffing around to eliminate probables. Construction maybe, an old application of a break-down resistant pesticide or lingering chemical damage (killing off beneficial cannibal nematodes for example), or a popular one in Northern climates - L.P. or natural gas leak. Landscape changes in ground cover or ammendments for beauty that create soil chemistry changes? Granite or limestone, charcoal or pine or needle mulch? Treated sand or de-icing agents on the walks from wintertime? Anti-rotting chemicals leaching off timbers? Railroad ties?
Are you a beer drinker and it's easier to pee outside than upstairs to the bathroom? Dogs? Llamas? Cats? Outflow from the septic or grey water discharge from the washin' machine? Irrigation overload? Fungally-odiferous slimely mush smell? White dusty crusty icky under the surface of the dirt/mulch?
Roofing materials, if remodeled lately? Gypsum from sheetrock or mortar mix and paint-brush washing outside at the base of it? Fuel or oil from the lawnmower dumped?
Slow changes in soil pH make some massive differences in available iron, among other probabilities. It's an bio-chemical thing, we can address it synthetically but only for a time. Go out there and snoop around and buy some iron that's readily absorbed, and get back to us.
Hey Guy - you're right pretty much but I've been watching the cork-screw principle in Post and burr oaks in heavy competition forests, either from mutational response from certain herbicide componants or some sort of physical anamoly, but what's often on the lower south-side (or side thereof) root reach isn't what's on the upper north-side of the canopy. It makes for some amazingly strong tensile timber but it freaks-out the standards as we understand them, of growth physics.
Someone showed me an ozone hypothesis, whatever it's worth. Concerned about relative radiational differences and changes affecting genetic responses to disease susceptability, I'm checking it out more and more. SPF for trees? Maybe. Trying a shot of an anti-dissicant with some pigment that might absorbe more spectrum light, another that would deflect certain colors, see what happens. Maybe in relation to wilt, here something might've been knocking loudly on the researchers but they failed to hear it. Wilt's always been a native dweller but only in the last 15 years has it presented itself with such brute force. Same with the epidemics only a few scientists have implicated pollution with that are destroying forests everywhere - including insect events.
In the meatime, buy the iron and pepper the fellow. Then go out there and mess about.
Opps. sorry.
Just noticed by your moniker that yer someone who probably doesn't irrigate out the back door after imbibing w/ beer during the football game...at half-time.
Maybe your husband and his buds though?
Just a thought, not an indictment.
Just noticed by your moniker that yer someone who probably doesn't irrigate out the back door after imbibing w/ beer during the football game...at half-time.
Maybe your husband and his buds though?
Just a thought, not an indictment.
Kneejerk Bombas
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With OW's iron recommendation, if you decide to try it, don't buy anything that is applied by drilling into the trunk.
In our area we have a shallow limestone bedrock, so we know about pH that is too high. Applications of sulfer help in the short run, amending the soil with topical applications of compost and wood chips works longer term.
And nobody else has mentioned it, so I will, those fertilizer spikes are worthless. They burn roots close to and under them and don't fertilize roots farther away. Not to mention, your tree may not need any fertilizer (N,P, or K).
Are you working on a picture?
In our area we have a shallow limestone bedrock, so we know about pH that is too high. Applications of sulfer help in the short run, amending the soil with topical applications of compost and wood chips works longer term.
And nobody else has mentioned it, so I will, those fertilizer spikes are worthless. They burn roots close to and under them and don't fertilize roots farther away. Not to mention, your tree may not need any fertilizer (N,P, or K).
Are you working on a picture?
Last edited:
Thanks for the advice
I will try to get a picture up the first of the week. We also have a small pin oak that we planted two years ago. It is close to the larger pin oak and it has orange leaves on it. Could the problem be the same for both trees?? I will post a picture of both trees.
Oh by the way....no one has been using the tree or the area around it as a bathroom. No construction, digging, ect. has been done around the tree. The color change is towards the house which is brick.
I will try to get a picture up the first of the week. We also have a small pin oak that we planted two years ago. It is close to the larger pin oak and it has orange leaves on it. Could the problem be the same for both trees?? I will post a picture of both trees.
Oh by the way....no one has been using the tree or the area around it as a bathroom. No construction, digging, ect. has been done around the tree. The color change is towards the house which is brick.
DadF
ArboristSite Operative
Like maybe bricks cleaned?? or tuck point work done??
Nothing has Changed............
on that side of the house. We thought last year it might have been the heat reflecting off of the bricks that caused the color change of the leaves on the tree, but why didn't it do it before last year! I will try to take a picture today and hopefully I will get it posted today or tomorrow.
on that side of the house. We thought last year it might have been the heat reflecting off of the bricks that caused the color change of the leaves on the tree, but why didn't it do it before last year! I will try to take a picture today and hopefully I will get it posted today or tomorrow.
Kneejerk Bombas
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You did a fine job with the pictures.
To me that looks like a classic example of Iron chlorosis. Pin Oaks like an acid soil, and in alkaline soil Iron becomes unavailabe to the tree.
Adding Iron won't help and changing soil pH is difficult, but not impossible.
You'll need to do two things. Get a soil sample tested for pH, and post another picture of the tree in it's setting so we can rule out some of the other possibilities.
To figure out your soil pH you might be able to get away with making a few phone calls to local garden centers, nurseries or tree services to ask what your soils are like, acid, alkaline or somewhere in between.
To me that looks like a classic example of Iron chlorosis. Pin Oaks like an acid soil, and in alkaline soil Iron becomes unavailabe to the tree.
Adding Iron won't help and changing soil pH is difficult, but not impossible.
You'll need to do two things. Get a soil sample tested for pH, and post another picture of the tree in it's setting so we can rule out some of the other possibilities.
To figure out your soil pH you might be able to get away with making a few phone calls to local garden centers, nurseries or tree services to ask what your soils are like, acid, alkaline or somewhere in between.
DadF
ArboristSite Operative
Looked like limestone rocks on the ground on the last pic. That could be the clue as to what is in the soil. If the trees were just planted(in the last several years) they could just now be getting into that limestone base.
Limestone!
Yes, our earth contact home is sitting on a limestone shelf. When it was dug, they removed several large sections. The larger tree was planted as a good size tree 14 years ago. The tiny tree was planted 2 years ago. We have a sweet gum tree right next to the larger pin oak, but it is doing great. If Limestone is the problem, what can be done?
Yes, our earth contact home is sitting on a limestone shelf. When it was dug, they removed several large sections. The larger tree was planted as a good size tree 14 years ago. The tiny tree was planted 2 years ago. We have a sweet gum tree right next to the larger pin oak, but it is doing great. If Limestone is the problem, what can be done?
DadF
ArboristSite Operative
If you're sitting on a limestone shelf........plant another tree that will tolerate the conditions because you're fighting a losing battle otherwise. Probably not what you wanted to hear but I'm sure somebody else will have more input.
Not if you put it on life support.
I'm going to jump the soil test gun here. Severe chlorosis will invite many pests, sunburn, and starvation.
Acidifying is mandatory, the expectency of pins is roughly your experience by the time they deep-root and lose some of the benefits of added fill. Chelate is rapid uptake and will display a difference within a few weeks. Temporary but I would suggest you apply it regularly.
Then we'll get to acidifying your soil around those two. Still some options available that are cheap and easy.
I'm going to jump the soil test gun here. Severe chlorosis will invite many pests, sunburn, and starvation.
Acidifying is mandatory, the expectency of pins is roughly your experience by the time they deep-root and lose some of the benefits of added fill. Chelate is rapid uptake and will display a difference within a few weeks. Temporary but I would suggest you apply it regularly.
Then we'll get to acidifying your soil around those two. Still some options available that are cheap and easy.
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