Many plants such as my mature mugo pine suffer from poorly drained soil. In my mugo's case it is causing yellowing of the leaves and die back of the tips. I wonder if there is a chemical reaction going on either in the roots or in the leaves that could be countered by the application of a chemical or some other treatment. I would hate to have to transplant the tree, and I don't see any way to improve the drainage in its present location.
There is a chemical reaction, caused by lack of oxygen penetration into the waterlogged soil. Not really solveable, though, unless you had some way of pumping compressed air into the soil.
I was afraid of that. I may try to install a "vertical drain", but don't want to. I still wonder though if the chemistry is such that there might be something one could apply to the leaves or roots that would simulate the missing oxygen uptake - sort of fooling nature. There might be some research along these lines out there, but I haven't found it so far. Thanks for your reply.
Is there any way you can auger out a 10 ft hole near the tree and put a vented sonotube in the hole. edit: I guess this is called vert drain like you already said. This would help a bit. A quick temp way to feed o2 to the root zone would be to feed it H2O2. I have seen a newish product out there that is supposed to introduce o2 to the roots with out killing the microbiology in the soil, I just can remember the name right now.
two methods you can use to try to indroduce oxygen to the soil, calcium peroxide and hydrogen peroxide. Radial trenching or vertical mulching may help also but the bottom line is water runs downhill, gravity and soil texture will be the most important for long term results.
