reasults of droughts on oak trees

We had several years of extreme drought a few years ago and while the results were easy to see on the fur trees the effect took several years for the oak trees to finally die as a result. It was too much for the old oaks and others to survive. It's a condition they call root rot and was caused during the drought and causes the tree to rot at the base from the center out. These trees look like beautiful healthy trees until they fall. Even though the base of this red oak is completely rotted you can see a couple of feet up the wood is fine. Sad.

Mike

It seems as if we have a vendetta against hardwoods in general and oaks in particular. Centuries old oaks are cut down without a second thought to make way for the most inane reasons. They are harvested for posts and pallets and mine timbers here. The galls on the red oaks are overwhelming many, many trees large and small. Then there's the weather; wind, lightning, rain, lack of rain, etc.

It is such a shame. And these hardwoods will never be replaced. Here in southern Illinois we used to have so many large stands of hardwoods, that the early settlers called the small clearings among them, prairies. Now this area is starting to look like eastern Kansas.

Ever seen an oak tree moved? The town I live in has a LOT of historic oak trees and there is a constant fight to not just bulldoze them for development. Considering that this towns population has more than doubled in the last 20 yrs (47K to 110K and still growing), makes it even more impressive.

So how long ago did they move that Oak tree?
It will be interesting to see how it is in 15-20 years. I assume its going to take a while for the roots to re-establish themselves in its new home. I would think its pretty vulnerable for the first 5 or more years. Gene

The survival rate of a tree that size being moved is not that high.

Have to appreciate the effort


These folks give you a two year guarantee!
https://www.marders.com/tree-moving

Looks like they spend time in the higher rent areas!

Red

The most recent video I could find was from June 2017, just two months before Harvey hit. As far as I know, it's still thriving.

Out here we have something called oak root fungus that is caused by watering oaks. Oaks here have easily lived through drought, but water it a few months near the trunk and it mag get the fungus and die.
Any watering of oaks should be done only at the drip line.

we still have plenty of healthy oakes here in ky but our ash population is about finished at least in the Louisville area no thanks to the invasive emerald ash bore. we personally have less than ten acres and have counted over 50 ash trees all dead now, not a single survivor on our property. some of our largest trees gone the way of the chestnut tree, very sad with no end in sight until the enter US population of ash is gone.most people are unaware, this is serious just look it up . baseball bats are made from ash

We haven't had a drought problem, but oaks are killed like weeds around this area. I'm not a tree hugger, but I do love nature, and know that a 100 year-old tree takes 100 years to replace (and likely never will).
But to change the subject slightly, have y'all ever read up on the American Chestnut Trees? They used to be a prominent hardwood in North America until decimated by blight in the early 1900's. Some day I plan to get a bag of seeds and plant some "groves" on public lands in hopes to bring them back (to some extent) in this area. Probably illegal, but not worried about getting caught...

While I've never seen it I've read several writings of the east coast "closed canopy". Early settlers and explorers both recorded that a squirrel could travel from the atlantic to the great plains without setting foot on the ground.
I live in an area of Nor Cal that has many oak varieties from huge valley oaks the some of the shortest scrub oaks. I treasure several large live oaks on our land (even with their spiny holly-like leaves). Of 8 or more growing on our property I have 2 multi trunk trees that are close to 4' tall with canopies co-mingled to create solid shade of an area about 125' x 65'. Most of the branches reach the ground on the drip-line of the trees creating a very nice micro-climate and refuge from summer heat.

I have lost several large oaks.

I have been told its a fungus or something that cannot be treated. It is something that if the tree is weakened for any reason, drought can be one of them, can swope in a kill the tree.

Sad to lose the tree then have to pay to have it taken down.

I went by the Compton Oak tree today......I won't say it looks sickly, but it definitely doesn't look as 'full' as it used to. I tried to get some video of the oaks in the historic part of town, but my phone was acting up, kept stopping after less than 5 sec of record?

https://www.acf.org/our-community/news/far-good-blight-resistant-chestnuts/

In addition to the 15/16th hybrid Chinese/American sapling trees now being planted,
Naturally resistant “mutant” American Chestnut trees have been discovered in Kentucky and North Carolina,
These two are “one in ten billion” survivors of the fungus blight somehow.

The blight also infects but does not kill Oak trees, so the blight is kept alive in today’s US forests.

About 40 years ago, a live, native American Chestnut was found about 2 miles from my house during a construction project. It was moved like the big oak tree in the posts above, but it wasn't near as big of a tree, or as old. It was maybe a foot through at the trunk. It was tested before moving, and didn't have the blight. It made it about 3 years before it died. My neighbors Dad took me and him hunting when we were little boys, and he showed us huge Chestnut trees laying on the ground after they got the blight and fell. They were in the Great Smokey Mtns. National Park. The trunks on some of them were at least 3' across!

I got 18 oaks on my property. My neighborhood is full of them. "Irma" topped 6 of mine, I trimmed back all the damage, they appear to have survived. The one pic below split, it looks like it is slowly "healing". I cut it back a lot to re-balance the weight, and to give it a breather. We'll see.

I have seen mushrooms growing up thru the grass under the canopy of the oaks at various times over the years, my guess it was just dead oak roots dying, trees "look" fine.

Got to respect anything that likely will out live me many times over.

Usually, if you see the black mushrooms growing around the base of an Oak, or lichens growing on the trunk of the tree....it ain't long for this world. When an Oak gets root rot, it won't have a brown leaf on it anywhere, and then one day BOOM , it hits the ground!

5,000 year life tree

https://www.livescience.com/48344-bristlecone-pines-photos.html

In my case to be more precise, I'm seeing them occasionally inside the drip line, but never closer then 15-20' from the trunk.

Should I park farther away?

From the experience I have from dealing with tree issues at work, it is usually Red Oaks that have the root rot problem. White Oaks are always pretty healthy trees, and never seem to get root rot. I have no idea about Pin Oaks or Live Oaks, since we don't have those in the mountains of NC. In Myrtle Beach, where we have a tin condo in a campground....every Live Oak I've seen fall during a hurricane has been hollow. If you live in the city limits, most cities have an arborist. Usually someone with a forestry management degree who knows every detail about this kind of stuff. They could tell you if there will likely be a problem with your trees due to the mushrooms. If you call Billy Bob's tree Service, he is going to tell you it's gonna fall any minute now and he'll cut it for you for $2K!

What a shame to loose nice big trees like that..



I thought there was a natural tendency for some trees to have hollow trunks? ..or maybe that's another tree specie, and not oaks?

I read about the Chestnut blight not too long ago. Similarly, our area lost vast numbers of Elm to Dutch Elm disease. I saw an old photo from the turn of the century showing what a canopy of Elms looked like over a neighborhood street - gorgeous tall cathedral of branches way up over the street, looked fantastic. Too bad they're gone.

Not much drought up here in the NEast. In our area of upstate NY, trees seem be getting bigger and bigger. No logging anymore in the river valleys, and trees in housing developments built in the '40s and 50s are getting very mature. Besides the ever-present Maples, our property has Pin Oak, Ash and Black Locust... they are giants, all of them over 100ft tall and tough as nails. The leaves from the Pin Oak are like leather. Locust got hit by lightning some 6 years ago, and only now is one limb showing deterioration. I planted an American Beech, and an Ash as shade trees for the driveway where I spend a lot of time..

..anyway, I love our trees, but boy, raking the leaves get to be a chore... thankfully we have teenage sons to do that!
- Art

Art.....when the boys get gone, buy a bagger for your riding mower if you have one. The best tool that I've ever bought was a 3 can bagger for our Craftsman riding mower. Stopping to empty is much easier than raking! I HATE raking!

Thanks for your thoughtful advice! We have a Toro doublewide, and I'll check with the dealer if I can get a bagger for it.. ..of course having The Boyz home for Thanksgiving will help the first few years after they fly.
- Art

https://www.deere.com/en/mowers/lawn-tractors/x300-series/x350-lawn-tractor-collect-mower/

I have one of these and love it.

Rear discharge so easier to get into tighter spots.

When the bag is full the blade shuts off. You can back into the spot where you want to dump then empty the bag without getting off the mower.

I just dump mine on site in an area set aside for leaves. If a person needed to bag the ground leaves there would need to be another manual step.