Trouble with Leaves on a Pin Oak
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Kneejerk Bombas
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The Iron Chelate comes in different formulations, as I said; don't use the one that is drilled into the tree. You should be able to find it at your local garden center.
You can also buy a 50-pound bag of sulfur and apply a couple pounds every three weeks or so, this will help acidify the soil temporarily, but the soil will always want to revert to the high pH of the bedrock.
Decaying organic matter tends to neutralize pH. By having a woodchip bed, and adding to it each year, you'll create a thin layer of lower pH near the surface.
Carefully kill the lawn in an area under and extending out past the drip line of the tree with Round-up and add a layer of compost, maybe an inch. Compost can be made, found, or purchased in bags at the garden or recycle center.
Cover that with about two inches of woodchips. An alternative to Round-up is to use newspaper under the woodchips, which is fairly effective at stopping grass from poking through.
Do not use plastic or landscape fabric! This will stop the goodies from getting to the soil.
Let us know how it goes.
You can also buy a 50-pound bag of sulfur and apply a couple pounds every three weeks or so, this will help acidify the soil temporarily, but the soil will always want to revert to the high pH of the bedrock.
Decaying organic matter tends to neutralize pH. By having a woodchip bed, and adding to it each year, you'll create a thin layer of lower pH near the surface.
Carefully kill the lawn in an area under and extending out past the drip line of the tree with Round-up and add a layer of compost, maybe an inch. Compost can be made, found, or purchased in bags at the garden or recycle center.
Cover that with about two inches of woodchips. An alternative to Round-up is to use newspaper under the woodchips, which is fairly effective at stopping grass from poking through.
Do not use plastic or landscape fabric! This will stop the goodies from getting to the soil.
Let us know how it goes.
Maas, if you ever feel like partnering in a tree health venture let me know.
One caution though...I'm a terrible businessman. I hate business.
SoapGal, Let us know if and when you get the chelate - I can give you a formula to suspend it in a soap/lye mixture.
One caution though...I'm a terrible businessman. I hate business.
SoapGal, Let us know if and when you get the chelate - I can give you a formula to suspend it in a soap/lye mixture.
DadF
ArboristSite Operative
Our tree/shrub sprayer employee went the route of the sulphur a few years back but apparently never read the app rates. We still have dead areas where he "applied" it
-he is also no longer employed here 
-he is also no longer employed here Kneejerk Bombas
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Good point Dad F, you need to read and follow the label on the products. The sulfur can burn grass and even tree roots if applied in the heat of the summer, not a big concern though.
Iron and sulfur applications may sound confusing, but if you read the label, it is usually pretty simple.
Iron and sulfur applications may sound confusing, but if you read the label, it is usually pretty simple.
Kneejerk Bombas
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bushman
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Thanks for pointing that out mike . i have a pin oak in my ownyard thats really been suffering from drought . the tree is really big for the area, have mulched the tree and have been fertilizing with organic lawn for two years and aeration thecolor is great,but have dead stillin places.
Kneejerk Bombas
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Having dead wood in a pin oak is normal. This tree grows very dense and many interior limbs will get shaded out and die.
What's interesting is these dead limbs last a long time. They are the toughest little limbs you'll ever see. Try breaking one off that is about the size of a pencil and been dead for a few years, you can't do it by hand.
Then look at a Silver Maple, there are none of these small dead limbs, once they die, they weaken and fall off in months. Even other Oaks don't hold on to the dead limbs the way a Pin Oak will.
If you are losing limbs that are out in the open or top of the tree, that would indicate some kind of problem that would need attention.
What's interesting is these dead limbs last a long time. They are the toughest little limbs you'll ever see. Try breaking one off that is about the size of a pencil and been dead for a few years, you can't do it by hand.
Then look at a Silver Maple, there are none of these small dead limbs, once they die, they weaken and fall off in months. Even other Oaks don't hold on to the dead limbs the way a Pin Oak will.
If you are losing limbs that are out in the open or top of the tree, that would indicate some kind of problem that would need attention.
Guy Meilleur
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Read this month's Journal of Arboriculture, good article on cambistat use for pin oak that may work well on yours.
bushman
ArboristSite Operative
thanks Guy for the tip ,cambistat is very costly.i will talk to my boss at my part time job at big yellow and see what rate and how. i have two nice trees ,ared oak with galls but the hurricane blew most of them off haa'.iwill be climbing pruning this weekend and i had big white pine die this don't know what happened,maybe to much wind from isabel.
Sapwood
ArboristSite Member
I have two 40' pins that need iron. Have already lost one and would like to save these two. Therefore I have read this thread several times. These were planted in an area that was a farmers gravel road back in the early 70's. Hence my suspesion that there is too much alkiline in that area. Tree's are about 10 years old and look just like the pictures soapgal posted. My lawn jocky company had their tree guy try to sell me the drilled in treatment. I have declined so far because of this:
A retired nursery owner also thought that one inch holes drilled about 18" deep into the soil around the drip line filled with about a tablespoon of iron sulfate could help. Any additional thoughts on this?
Sap
Mike, whats the cons to this method. I'm told it would cost about $50 per tree and may last three years.
A retired nursery owner also thought that one inch holes drilled about 18" deep into the soil around the drip line filled with about a tablespoon of iron sulfate could help. Any additional thoughts on this?
Sap
Kneejerk Bombas
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Here's a pretty good artice on your problem: http://infosource.uwex.edu/recorddetail.cfm?messageid=101213&heading=Garden%20and%20Landscape&headingid=2
Your question about drilling into the tree is more difficult to answer because it takes a good understanding of how a tree reacts to wounding of wood.
When a tree is injured, it closes off the area around the injury by clogging vascular tubes and forming chemical barriers around that injury to prevent decay from spreading through the tree.
This process has become widely known as CODIT, an acronym for Compartmentalization of Decay In Trees. A ggogle search will give you more hits that at a trailer park on a friday nite.
The area the tree walls off is larger than the injury itself, and the area inside the walls is isolated from the tree and often becomes a hollow cavity in years to come. Now, if you encircle your tree with several small injuries, the tree will react as if this is one big injury and compartmentalize the entire trunk. New wood will be added each year on the outside of the tree, so it will appear normal, but inside the tree will have abandoned an area the size of the trunk at the time of the injury. This entire area can rot away.
A healthy, young tree can usually take this and recover, inspite of the hollow forming at it's center, but your trees are not healthy and you're not just doing this once. You'll be back every three years reinjuring your tree.
The chemicals you are adding in these injection site are concentrated and quite hard on the plant cells in the area they are injected, so this increases the damage at the injection sites. In post mortum examinations of trees injected, I've seen areas of dead tissue running 6 or 8 feet up the trunk from injection sites, unseen from the outside, until I cut open the log.
We once were called to a site to examine some trees, one we saw was trunk injected for years. We warned the homeowner the tree was at risk of failure, and only about three days later it fell literally right on her as she laid in a lawn chair under the tree. Luckly she only suffered a broken back and recovered almost completely.
It was very interesting to see what the trunk injections had done to the tree. The entire center was punky and decayed with big pockets at each injection site.
So, spary some micronutrients on the foliage, you can do it yourself if you're handy. (Ortho sells a hose end sprayer that goes almost thirty feet, depending on hose presure). Then get some aluminum sulfate, some elemental sulfer, and apply as recommended. Then work on some longer tem solutions, like getting some peatmoss and compost down, along with some woodchips (total depth not to exceed 3' to 4").
Your question about drilling into the tree is more difficult to answer because it takes a good understanding of how a tree reacts to wounding of wood.
When a tree is injured, it closes off the area around the injury by clogging vascular tubes and forming chemical barriers around that injury to prevent decay from spreading through the tree.
This process has become widely known as CODIT, an acronym for Compartmentalization of Decay In Trees. A ggogle search will give you more hits that at a trailer park on a friday nite.
The area the tree walls off is larger than the injury itself, and the area inside the walls is isolated from the tree and often becomes a hollow cavity in years to come. Now, if you encircle your tree with several small injuries, the tree will react as if this is one big injury and compartmentalize the entire trunk. New wood will be added each year on the outside of the tree, so it will appear normal, but inside the tree will have abandoned an area the size of the trunk at the time of the injury. This entire area can rot away.
A healthy, young tree can usually take this and recover, inspite of the hollow forming at it's center, but your trees are not healthy and you're not just doing this once. You'll be back every three years reinjuring your tree.
The chemicals you are adding in these injection site are concentrated and quite hard on the plant cells in the area they are injected, so this increases the damage at the injection sites. In post mortum examinations of trees injected, I've seen areas of dead tissue running 6 or 8 feet up the trunk from injection sites, unseen from the outside, until I cut open the log.
We once were called to a site to examine some trees, one we saw was trunk injected for years. We warned the homeowner the tree was at risk of failure, and only about three days later it fell literally right on her as she laid in a lawn chair under the tree. Luckly she only suffered a broken back and recovered almost completely.
It was very interesting to see what the trunk injections had done to the tree. The entire center was punky and decayed with big pockets at each injection site.
So, spary some micronutrients on the foliage, you can do it yourself if you're handy. (Ortho sells a hose end sprayer that goes almost thirty feet, depending on hose presure). Then get some aluminum sulfate, some elemental sulfer, and apply as recommended. Then work on some longer tem solutions, like getting some peatmoss and compost down, along with some woodchips (total depth not to exceed 3' to 4").
Sapwood
ArboristSite Member
Mike, thanks for taking the time to explain this. I appreciate it!
Sap
Sap
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