I have six Japanese maples planted 4 yrs ago. They were all doing great (in part shade) until about 3 months ago. One of them starts to have total drying out leaves on only very defined one branch of the tree, then the same thing moveed to the very next branch. (Please see the pictures. Taken 1 month ago) One by one, the whole tree now has almost no green leaves and seems died. Yesterday, I notices that a second tree just started the similar thing for one of its branches. Is this a disease migrating or root problem? Help! Help! Help! Thanks a lot! Forrest/California/San Mateo
Re: Maple dies frem drying out leaves branch by branch... if you see the pics ,for me is under watering(in the pics i not see if you have ex.pine bark around the trunk )however is possible Verticilium see in Faq .
Re: Maple dies frem drying out leaves branch by branch... Forrest, Could you check the branches and twigs which have lost their leaves, do they look green and alive?, are the buds black end dry? Gomero
Re: Maple dies frem drying out leaves branch by branch... Are these trees contiguous? And what about the affected branches, are they confronted? Looks like a fungal disease, die back.
Thanks for all the suggestions. Today I checked all these trees again. You know what? There are three of them have the some situation. Quite sad. The worse one (the one in the picture) I have given up. I checked the branches today, there are some brown spot on the branches about 10-15cm long, which I did not notice. Rest of branches are green, giving you a feeling that tree might come back which I don't know. For the least problem tree I cut off the "infected branches" and applied the prune paste at the cutting surface and I am hoping that will stop the spreding the problem. I will let you all knowthe result. Thanks!
Forrest, My suggestion is that if branches look healthy (that means if they do not look black dead) and the buds alive, then do nothing. If branches look (really) dead, then prune to the first pair of healthy buds with clean tools, do not apply any paste. Maples can defoliate for many reasons, some harmless and some harmful, the behavior of twigs and branches can tell one from each other. Gomero
