Hi, I am loosing my established maples to the tight bark desease. I also think that I might spread the ploblem to some of my own grafted three year old maples. What can I do? Did anyone has a cure? regards Wolfgang
the dreaded Tight Bark hello, it's pretty serious stuff. do a search for it on the ubc, but meanwhile, read this . . . http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=8751 n. musume
Thanks for the quick response and the reminder that we discussed this problem awhile ago.That's what I got out of it then: TB is not a soil desease TB can not be cured TB might be slowed down with pruning Trees with TB should not be used as a host tree. TB kills a lot of Japanese Maples and not even Mr. Shep has the answer. Are they any new ideas or findings about TB? I attach some photo's regards Wolfgang
to see the light is to see the painful truth of what has become of many japanese maples. To many if will be hogwash, or what on earth, or you have to be crazy. To those of us that are willing to recognize what you have, we realize that we are in deep--on an island with a disease that is choking the life from our maples--if that sound dramatic, then it is, if not, it is a wake up call. Webwolf-- Happy to see you back, but I wish it was for a different reason. You have done your reading and have a good summary, all of which is accurate. Your options are, one to increase vigor through fertilization. This should be combined with a minimum 30% reduction in wood, primarily from the most infected branches. If this does not work and you see that you are losing the battle, a more drastic prune will be necessary to try to force new growth. Tight bark usually kills in combination with verticillium, neither strong enought to kill the plant, but together, DEADLY. When you have TB and VW together, your only hope is to heavily prune, maybe over two seasons, to force growth low on the plant, close to the graft union, with the resulting tree being strong enough to keep the resurgence of the disease in-check. Unfortunately, your climate in Australia is much like what we face here in the hot valley of southern Oregon and we will see tight bark much worse that people in more temperate climates. Best regards and talk to you soon,
Hi, Is there anything else we know about TB, where it comes from, how to prevent it? Fertilizing is probably the easy part, severe pruning the painful one. Most of the pics are from a beautiful green disectum planted in a wine barrel. The other half of the wine barrel is the home of a same size Bronze Wing with no signs of TB. If we do not know how we can prevent TB, do we know if it spreads like an infection. Can it take over the Bronze Wing by just being a metre away? So what do we know: avoid the hotter climate What about: soil temperture- is it better to give an affected plant cooler roots by planting it in the ground over head watering- I had to turn the sprinkler system on in the night last summer So many unanswered questions. regards Wolfgang PS: I think verticillium is an american only desease ( I hope ) PPS: What would be a good boosting ferlilizer?
Which part of Australia are you from? In Syndey I found it is no where as hot as California, but Brisbane is very hot. (35C) I found the dissectums have more chances of tight bark, and slow growing cultivars too. Just from browsing nurseries, one can see that some of these plants have tight bark. It is better to recognize it and buy plants that do not show it. I have bought a couple of plants before I know of this the condition reading on the UBC forums; as I didn't know what to look for back then. The question I have is, do we have to remove all the branches that appear to be infected. And is it going to spread to another maple nearby in the ground? Does the tight bark pathogen get multipled in the soil as the plant decline? From what I have gathered verticillium and tight bark can be cleaned up via propagation, though it might never go away. Pick seeds from a parent tree that do not show signs and then select a seedling with good vigor, graft a scion that do not show tight bark.
Fertilizer is not nearly as helpful with TB as it is with verticillium, but it can still be a tool for us. Planting in the ground during the early stages of the infection, or when seeing the early signs, will give the plant a better chance to fight the diesease. So yes, having our maples in the ground is a good or one of the best ways to work against this disease. From what I know it is not infectious from plant to plant and passed only in propagation. The only way to clean up the maples is through propagation and potentially resistant rootstocks. Resistant rootstocks will only help if we have clean scion wood as we can create a grafted plant with a clean rootstock but still have an infected scion. If clean wood can be obtained, I am sure that cuttings play a role in fighting against this disease. I don't think VW is disease local to this country and I am fairly certain that Webwolf has or is fighting it in one plant or another. regards,
