50' Cedar Tree turning brown!

Hi, I live close to UBC and have a 50' cedar tree in my backyard that is turning brown from the ground upwards. The branches at ground level are getting bare. I started watering the tree 3 times a week but it is not making any difference. I bought 5 bags of dirt and covered the ground around the trunk and stuck some fertilizer sticks along the dripline. Still no change... Any ideas what I can do to find out what's wrong??

Thanks,

Mike

 

Can you post some photos? Pics of the whole tree, and the foliage. Is the condition similar to this one?: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=33146 Or to this one: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=27610

Sorry, but neither of those will help, they'll both make it worse, particularly the extra soil.

 

If these branches are dying due to bugs, blight or shading watering will have no effect. Also if drought injury is involved the watering will not affect the situation unless it is effectively undertaken. Many soils here are by now, despite the lingering winter this year in a dustlike condition as is usual for July on many sites in this region. Copious watering may be needed to re-wet such ground. Unless you already know you have gotten good deep wetting of the soil profile around the tree it might be a good idea to dig some holes and make a visual inspection.

Native western redcedar (Thuja plicata), the usual "cedar" of locally based discussion often discards old interior foliage conspicuously during summer drought conditions. If your tree is one of these and only the interior foliage of the lower branches is dying, and not all of the foliage all the way out to the tips then this annual phenomon may be what you are seeing.

 

Are there any remnant Port Orford cedars around there?

It's one of the first to come to mind when I think of big tree plus dying at the same time, and someone refers to a "cedar".

 

I have seen a number of western red cedar (Thuja plicata) flagging but also overall browning and sort of 'wilting'. My usual line of thought is water issues, these trees grew the last 50 or more years in a rainforest situation and the last ten years or so we have been getting longer drought periods (just from my memory, no scientific research at this point) during summer. Currently we have had one of the driest Julys on record.

As Ron B insinuated, you cant medicate without diagnosis. It might be a water issue, it might be an insect issue and it might be a fungal or other issue... The more evidence you can provide the better the diagnosis can become.

 

I would like to thank everyone for offering their ideas. The tree was turning brown so fast I brought in an arborist this morning and he confirmed firstly it's a cypress tree! (ok, I'm not a gardener) and it has a common root fungus that is fatal. :( It's a shame because it was such a majestic tree.

 

Sad. Is the disease the arborist mentioned Phytophthora?

 

Likely, it is somewhat common here. You might be able to isolate the disease if you can send some tissue samples to the ministry of agriculture lab out in Abbotsford.

 

Why not post a photo of the tree. Some flagging
is considered natural to some people but to me it
is not a natural phenomenon. Around here is
usually caused by Tip moths, Shoot moths and
Spider mites. These aggravating critters but
generally, by themselves, not lethal to the tree
issues are magnified and exacerbated along
with lack of water along with heat and wind
stress. Coastal Redwoods sloughing off tip
and in some cases the deadened undergrowth
three to four times a year around here is not
a natural event, although we take it for granted
we will see it happen in dry and warm climates.
The shedding of deadened undergrowth due to
lack of light penetration is however a natural
occurrence around these parts.

Dryness from lack of water or sustained drought
conditions does not always cause a water mold
fungi to come about out of no where. A 50' tall
tree by this time has already learned to live with
organisms capable of producing a wet rot or a
dry rot - Phytophthora sp. are fully capable of
producing both forms of rot, even a gummosis
causing wet lesion form we can see in some
Citrus.

Lack of deep water or water stress and perhaps
Mite damage may be the principal cause of the
lower limbs to become barren. We see it a lot
here on Colorado Blue Spruce as well as Thuja
and Chamaecyparis. Much of the time internal
browning is caused by Spider mites as well.
The issue here is later on a rust form fungus
can come about from the Mite damage and
can easily spread throughout the tree which
is common to many Cryptomeria.

Browning from the bottom upwards does not
bother me as much as browning from the top
downwards will. The latter makes it a whole
lot tougher to save the tree, especially when
we may have a few Flathead borers working
inside the tree or the tree came under attack
from some Engraver and/or Bark beetles (check
the older side branches for a series of small
holes in the outer bark).

Jim

 

Thuja plicata aso shows a compartmentalizing response to drought, the upper crown dying but the rest remaining green.

Root rot of Port Orford cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana) when fatal tends to produce an entirely dead crown, the whole thing going brown throughout. Phytophthora is not the only genus causing failure of this species in local cultivation.

Note also that water molds such as Phytophthora are not actually fungi but rather more like brown algae.