Hi, HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Johnny3212

Hi, everyone and thanks for the help. Last year I had a sick, fifty foot , maple tree removed from my front lawn and had it replaced with an "October Glory" Red Maple. This spring I noticed a large sunscald mark on the tree. So, I did what all the tree websites say to do and cut off all loose bark with a sterilized knife. When cutting off bark I found around one hundred pincher insects living in tree. The exposed bark is brown/black in color with powdery white spots mixed in. Please tell me this tree isn't dying!!!!! I went all out and paid $450.00 for a 4" caliper tree. The tree doesn't appear to be sick in any other way and is growing nicely. My question is- Is this normal color on the exposed wood or do I have some sort of infection/disease? Thanks! John O'Grady, feasterville, Pa.

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Eric Frei

For most part heartwood of the tree is dead, as in deadwood.

That's why when you ringbark a tree it eventually dies, only the outer shell is "living".

What you see at the edge of the wound is the living shell, what is in the middle is heartwood (dead).

Trees can be almost entirely hollow and still green, remember that only the outer sapwood is alive and vascular.

The deadwood will slowly rot and decay unless you do something about it.

You could try to paint a fungicide over the exposed part ONLY and not on the living wood or bark. Eventually the tree will grow over that wound (occlude) and compartmentalise that rot pocket.

But, chances are the decay within the tree now, like 1" inside the surface will continue to degrade the heartwood.

It would in maturity be a very very bad location for compromised strength as all the flex and movement of the canopy is transferred to the root plate via the trunk. There is a lot of force on the lower 6m of trunk of trees.

I believe the heartwood of that tree is relatively soft and decays quite easily so you really need to do your best to keep the tree happy with correct mulching, correct planting (looks a little deep) and care.

I would paint on a copper based fungicide over that exposed heartwood for now.

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Victor Lindsay

Pincher bugs are scavengers by nature, but some are predators and omnivorous. They feed on plants, fruits, vegetables, and on dead and decaying animal bodies. Send a sample to a lab to ID the fungus and pest. I would do a basal trunk application with a pesticide to target that pest. Find out if there is a fungus, then do a basal trunk application with a fungicied targeting that fungus, (you can do both applications in one treatment). You need to stop the source of the decay.

Eric Frei

Do neither.

Why?

Because the decay and bugs are in non conductive heartwood. Any basal drench or foliar spray is not going to get the chemicals into the heartwood, waste of time and money. The heartwood is exposed and pretty much defenceless, that is where application needs to be made. After painting a fungicide you could mask off the outer cambium layer and spray it with Mortein Surface spray to deter bugs, but it is just at that site your efforts need to be made.

Trees produce their own anti-fungal agents, keep health, vigour and vitality good for the remainder of the tree.

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Victor Lindsay

How do they treat for EAB? This bore gets into the heartwood also, and is treated using a basal trunk spray with a two year residual.

Victor Lindsay

How do we know its a pincher bug, and not a pest feeding on the inner bark, like the emerald ash borer larvae?

Eric Frei

It goes through the cambium first doesn't it?

Here you have an open wound.

To follow your logic trail then you'd have to say that infection is likely elsewhere other than the open wound, which it is not or all other trees would be attacked, like EAB.

Your logic is flawed.

Treat the open wound area ONLY.

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Victor Lindsay

My logic is to diagnos the problem. So i repeat, find out what caused the open wound first.

Eric Frei

The problem is there is an open wound, for most parts defense-less .... lose not focus on problem, once problem understood then good understanding of tree biology and functions makes delivery methods of possible solutions more accurate.

We do not put a coronary stent up your ass but up your artery do we.

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Eric Frei

Opening post it is written .....

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Johnny3212

Thanks for help everyone. Seems like painting exposed area with fungicide is the way to go and hope for the best. Just to clarify, pincher bugs were living under peeling bark, not inside wood of tree. They all just ran for the hills when I cut off bark with knife. I really like this tree and can't wait to see it's colors in the fall. thanks! John.

Victor Lindsay

Borers were feeding on something...but what? Are they still there? Was the pest a borer or not?

The client did say sunscald, but was it sunscald that started this?

Many questions unanswered.

Proper diagnosis would be to idenify the pest or desease, then treat.

Just because I have chest pains does not mean I'm having a heart attack.

Brent Ferris

To avoid another possible sunscald problem in the future, wrap the trunk with burlap in the Fall (after leaf fall) and remove as buds start to open. Once the trunk reaches 10" diameter or so, the burlap can be discontinued.

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Eric Frei

I'm not busting your balls but I could not let your post go, because it is not accurate.

Look at the pictures, where is the borer holes?

Look at the canopy:- good colour, good shoot extension, good leaf size, good foliage density, no deadwood, no tip dieback, no browning of leaves.

I cannot see the trunk flare, it could be planted a little deep. That should be checked.

At the edges of the wound there is good woundwood formation, the tree is doing fine except for where a decent chunk of bark is missing. It's like if you fell of a bike and got a decent piece of skin ripped off, you'd expect infection as the skin (bark for trees) is missing. The rest of this tree seems to be doing fine, and a well cared for healthy tree will fend for itself, however exposed heartwood, especially for that species offers little defence.

The pincher bugs, I did not know what they were so I Googled it, "Oh them" I went, flamin earwigs we call them, never seen them do much like slater bugs, they hang around dark moist places and scavenge. I have written in many places around the forum that beneath the bark in situations like this it's a bug fest, better off to remove the bark to get rid of the bug condo shelter.

The discolouration of the heartwood, typical for the species when exposed, it is already colonised with fungal spores which love "sweet soft wood". I compare it to our liquid ambers here, rot easy and bugs love them.

I'd go as far as pressure injecting fungicide into the heartwood, try and stop that fungi from spreading but it's not practical and I do not have the tool.

Until that wound closes over keep painting on fungicide. It does work, and the reason why we do not do it when pruning trees is that it wears off and has to be reapplied, which no-one does.

So I am not busting your balls, just see things differently and have dealt with it over and over like groundhog day.

If we are inserting a stent then we know what the chest pains are from, we are not guessing. Here I am not guessing, I know with 99.99% certainty. It could also be that if the tree was sling lifted that caused the damage to, whether it is sunscald or mechanical the treatment is the same.

The cause of say collar rot or some other pathogen, hmmm I do not buy it due to the superb condition of the rest of the tree. Now the first pic at the very top of the wound and just to the left is a small crack in the bark, but it is not weeping out goo, no gumosis, or other sign of a typical fungal attack.

Even when I dealt with a similar case here in the real world it looked worse, but the cause was 99.99% sling lift, and now the trees are booming.

Juvenile poinciana problems - case study

If the tree was not slinged and it got sunscald maybe it wasn't marked for orientation, like we put a white dot for north. So if all of a sudden the tree got planted out of true orientation then that bark gets cooked as the tree wasn't sun hardened on that side.

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Jeff Darby

It is unfortunate this tree has suffered this injury. The trees orientation during the transplant procedure might not been plotted causing sunburn or some mechanical damage caused the wound to the trunk.

The trunk seems to have no taper you would expect to see if the tree was planted at the right depth and I would have a look at that , the canopy is full with good leaf size and no tip dieback.

The wound area on the trunk is showing what appears to be good woundwood formation albiet be in a bad location when the tree becomes larger as it is in an area that handles high stress in in bad weather. I like Eric's idea on painting the exposed heartwood with a fungicide.

Once you have checked that the tree has not been planted to deep I would concentrate on maintaining this trees health by mulching around the base of the tree keeping the mulch off the base of the trunk by at least 6".

I do think your tree will survive this setback as you can see it's already dealing with it by the formation of woodwood around the edge of your surgery work and the tree clearly displays good vigour..IMO. I hope this helps.

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Victor Lindsay

Hey Eric, I'm not bustin your balls eather. Your approach to this diognosis is sound. And your credentials support your approach. I have my own set of credentials, one of them is a licence from the Bureau of Entomology & pest control. And I will approach a diognosis differently than you. That said...we know only what the client has told us, and we assume the client is correct with their ID of the problem.

I never said your diognosis or treatment was incorrect. I just gave additional advice. Now the client has to choose...and he chose your method. It's a win-win for the client.