I have a red maple about 10 years old that has been slowing dying the last couple years. There is what looks like a fungus on the bark that spreads an eventually kills the foliage. Any help identifying the calprit would be greatly appreciated. I will post pics in a minute. Thanks!
That is an insect problem, not a fungal problem. That is a very heavy population of some kind of scale insect. I can't see enough detail to identify which species of scale, but whichever it is, it is heavy enough to be sucking the life out of the tree and could eventually kill it, and quite possibly move to other suitable hosts nearby. Hear in Ohio the most common scale on Red Maple would be oystershell scale. Take a strong magnifying glass out and look at your tree, and compare it to images of oystershell and San Jose scale and see if it matches up to one of those.
Are you sure it's not lichen? That's all I see, but my eyes aren't very good. An in-focus close-up of the bark would help, perhaps.
We had our county extension office working with Virginia Tech look at it and they said it is gloomy scale.
