Any help or advice would be appreciated. I have a 15ft Autumn Blaze Maple that the branches are splitting. Other than the splitting branches the tree is healthy looking. I applied the Bayer Advanced fertilized this week in the hopes it would help. I am new to gardening and unsure what to do. Thanks in advance.
Damage looks mechanical to me. (Something chewing on it?) Tree otherwise looks good. Don't fertilize again, and don't worry the tree is already recovering. -E
To me, this looks like the usual vascular fungus complaint that we hear about so often on this site. The disease kills the tissue just under the bark that carries nutrients and water up the tree and the products of photosynthesis down to the roots. I agree with Emery that the tree is already recovering--when a patch of tissue dies, the bark that covers the dead tissue often hangs on for a while, but there's nothing underneath. Eventually the dead bark flakes off, which is why this looks like mechanical damage, and the tissue regrows from the sides of the wound, which I think we can see in the picture of the horizontal branch. But I have one other suggestion. It's reasonable to mulch the area around the trunk, to avoid competition from grass and to keep mowers away from the trunk. But the mulch should not contact the trunk, and it certainly shouldn't bury the base of the trunk to a depth of six or ten inches, as it does with your tree. Bark should be in contact with the air, not covered with a mulch that holds moisture; that might even have been the cause of the problem. So please pull back the mulch from the trunk, so that you can see the root flare where the tree enters the ground. Six inches of space all the way around should do the trick. Best of luck.
Thank you both very much! I really appreciate the advice. As a novice I don't always know what to do or whats going on and I appreciate the fact that there are good people out there to aid with their knowledge.
