treeclimber165
Member A.K.A Skwerl
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-loc-tree072001.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
Downpours fuel tree crisis
Mark Schlueb
Sentinel Staff Writer
July 20, 2001
The 200-year-old live oak tree that toppled at Harry P. Leu Gardens won't be the last to fall.
Smacked with a one-two punch of drought followed by heavy downpours, Orlando's stately oak trees are falling and dropping limbs so fast that cleanup crews can barely keep up. City tree-trimming squads have received 512 emergency calls already this year -- more than all of last year.
"There are three limbs down already this morning, and there's not even a storm," Orlando's forester, Andy Kittsley, said Thursday.
The problem is largely restricted to the core of Orlando, where downtown streets and neighborhoods are shaded by straight-trunk laurel oaks and gnarled and twisty live oaks. Oaks have been hit so hard by several years of drought that many are now too weak to fend off fungal diseases. And now that summer rains have started, bone-dry limbs soak up more water than they can bear and become so engorged they collapse under their own weight.
Add in the fact that many of the area's laurel oaks are reaching the end of their 80- to 90-year lifespans, and Orlando has a real problem.
"The trees have gone from one extreme to the other, with the drought and the rain, and they're just falling apart," said Josh Tankersley, a manager with the private tree company Arbor Care.
Tankersley and an Arbor Care crew spent Thursday carving up the 100-foot tall live oak that fell at Leu Gardens on Wednesday night. The crew had to use a crane and a bucket truck to handle the massive tree, destined for the landfill.
The tree fell during a storm Wednesday that dumped 3.44 inches of rain on Orlando. Kittsley said it succumbed to a combination of age, drought damage and root rot.
Andrea Van Loan, a biologist with the Florida Division of Forestry in Gainesville, said drought conditions have left many of Central Florida's oaks reeling from a disease called Hypoxylon canker, a fungus that's always present but more dangerous when trees are weakened by drought or anything else.
Trees are more apt to die from disease during periods of weakness, just as infant and elderly humans are more likely to succumb to ailments such as pneumonia.
"For the past two years, we've had a significant increase in reports of mortality with laurels and live oaks," Van Loan said. "The extreme drought has increased the stress on the trees. They're dying due to the drought, and the Hypoxylon takes advantage of that."
Hypoxylon isn't the only thing waiting to prey on trees. Excess rain contributes to rot and some fungal problems. Ips beetles and Southern pine beetles, which thrive on drought-weakened trees, are killing acres of pines in Lake County and elsewhere in Florida.
But oak trees in Central Florida have been hit harder than those in other parts of the state, Van Loan said.
"That's really where the worst drought conditions have been concentrated," she said.
Mark Schlueb can be reached at [email protected] or 407-420-5417.
Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel
Downpours fuel tree crisis
Mark Schlueb
Sentinel Staff Writer
July 20, 2001
The 200-year-old live oak tree that toppled at Harry P. Leu Gardens won't be the last to fall.
Smacked with a one-two punch of drought followed by heavy downpours, Orlando's stately oak trees are falling and dropping limbs so fast that cleanup crews can barely keep up. City tree-trimming squads have received 512 emergency calls already this year -- more than all of last year.
"There are three limbs down already this morning, and there's not even a storm," Orlando's forester, Andy Kittsley, said Thursday.
The problem is largely restricted to the core of Orlando, where downtown streets and neighborhoods are shaded by straight-trunk laurel oaks and gnarled and twisty live oaks. Oaks have been hit so hard by several years of drought that many are now too weak to fend off fungal diseases. And now that summer rains have started, bone-dry limbs soak up more water than they can bear and become so engorged they collapse under their own weight.
Add in the fact that many of the area's laurel oaks are reaching the end of their 80- to 90-year lifespans, and Orlando has a real problem.
"The trees have gone from one extreme to the other, with the drought and the rain, and they're just falling apart," said Josh Tankersley, a manager with the private tree company Arbor Care.
Tankersley and an Arbor Care crew spent Thursday carving up the 100-foot tall live oak that fell at Leu Gardens on Wednesday night. The crew had to use a crane and a bucket truck to handle the massive tree, destined for the landfill.
The tree fell during a storm Wednesday that dumped 3.44 inches of rain on Orlando. Kittsley said it succumbed to a combination of age, drought damage and root rot.
Andrea Van Loan, a biologist with the Florida Division of Forestry in Gainesville, said drought conditions have left many of Central Florida's oaks reeling from a disease called Hypoxylon canker, a fungus that's always present but more dangerous when trees are weakened by drought or anything else.
Trees are more apt to die from disease during periods of weakness, just as infant and elderly humans are more likely to succumb to ailments such as pneumonia.
"For the past two years, we've had a significant increase in reports of mortality with laurels and live oaks," Van Loan said. "The extreme drought has increased the stress on the trees. They're dying due to the drought, and the Hypoxylon takes advantage of that."
Hypoxylon isn't the only thing waiting to prey on trees. Excess rain contributes to rot and some fungal problems. Ips beetles and Southern pine beetles, which thrive on drought-weakened trees, are killing acres of pines in Lake County and elsewhere in Florida.
But oak trees in Central Florida have been hit harder than those in other parts of the state, Van Loan said.
"That's really where the worst drought conditions have been concentrated," she said.
Mark Schlueb can be reached at [email protected] or 407-420-5417.
Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel
