Whats happening to our trees!

How many other people are noticing this kind of damage to trees around the lower mainland? I looked at atleast 1500 trees this week alone. This is just a small sample of what I'm seeing. I thought last year was bad, but this years is 10 times worse. Other than the one pic of the cherry leaves, this is not caused by span worms. It has to be something to do with the hot dry summers we had a few years ago. You can see the deteriation of the tissue as soon as the leaves are formed, and the holes only get bigger as the leaf grows. Massive holes, dying tips, and curled and deformed leaves on 10's of thousands of trees. As for the span worms, there does seem to be lots of them this year, but i notice that they are falling out of trees early, many still a redish colour, like there not getting enough nutrients from the trees. I don't know what to think. Any input would be greatly welcomed. Theres no way this many trees could be effected by bacterial blight and shot hole disease. Hope my pic post ok,, Jim

 

Any sign of other animal/insect vectors?

Environmental changes?

Is area in flight path?

??

 

Is this only affecting plants in the Rosaceae?

 

Pictures 2 and 3 look like Bruce Spanworm damage, the others look like a fungal issue of some sort as there are halos of discoloration around the damaged areas.

 

Hi, and thank you for the responces. I've been finding these holes in the leaves of a large variety of trees, in every city in the lower mainland. Last year and the year before I noticed unusual holes in the new growth, growing, all summer long, well after our span worm cycle completed; and thats what? about mid June at the latest usually. At first I thought that there was some sort of invisible tree weevil I could never see, maybe came out at night. By the end of last summer I figured it must be from heat, drought, climate change, I don't know. But I couldn't wait until this spring to see how the new leaves did. And sure enough, they're worse than last year already, and its only May.
As for what kind of trees Dan, I would think that the big large leaf maples, red and green, started showing the worse symtoms first, and still do on average. But take a good look at cherrys, plums, apples, and lindens, which are all common for spanworm damage. You will find thousands of these trees riddled with holes and 4 spanworms. Easy to just brush off as span worm damge at a glance, but theres no webbing holding the leaf folded, and little black specks of worm poo, no sign of spanworms near 90% of these holes, and I've been watching these holes deteriate through, since the leaves first came out.
Ya Jimmy thats what span worms add the problem, the 2 upside down leaves are just the 2 bottom leaves from the pic before it, flipped over. You can see the brown dots, in a week those dots will be big holes. "well not now"
I bet I could find 100 trees of 10 different varieties, just on Allison Rd. and Acadia Rd.'s in the UBC area, that are infected. I had 3 landscapers calling last week for that area, saying there customers trees are being eaten alive. I hear it all day, it's nuts! I can't wait to find an answer someday. And please if you notice what I see or have any suggestion, I'd sure like to hear. Thanks Jim. "im going to carry my camera all next week"

 

Jim, try sending leaf samples to the folks out on angus campbell road in abbotsford, at the bc ministry of Ag, you may get some responses.
as for the bruce spanworm, I have seen at least 5 clients that have trees (Aesculus and Acer species_ that had the worms present, not in large numbers, with no webbing and no frass visible. but, there would be no halos around the damage with them, just munched leaves.

http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/lab.htm

 

I have sent samples to them a couple years ago about this. And over the years for various things. I've spoke with Dave Woodski there about this as well, and before that I learned a lot from Hanna Mathers there years ago. She was so awesome! But diagnostics came back as "abiolic" or something like that, I'm not too sure what that even means. Does it mean just natural accurance? I will get you some better pics this week of trees that look munched to no end. But it would have taken a thousand spanworms to this much damage, and I am lucky to find 2 worms. And the holes keep growing and multiplying as the summer goes by. Off to the rodeo, Thanks Jimmy. jim.

 

http://www.drdo.org/pub/techfocus/april05/transgenic_tomato.htm
The above link discusses "abolic" stress on tomatoes.
Apparently environmental factors are implicated in distress to
the plants and they are unable to sustain normal metabolic function.

 

or did you mean abiotic? like rain, wind, fire...
:)

 

Thanks for the replys, I looked up the Diagnosis and it said: " The cause of the problem may be either abiotic or in the roots". Does'nt help me to much as what may be the cause, but I will evenge this problem. More pics of the devistation coming soon! I have a few thousand trees to look at this week, throughout townhouse, condo, and private residences. ty Jim.

 

how about an overview of any environmental changes, such as sudden extreme cold spells following unusually warm periods. Anything unseasonal? Any new industrial complexes arising in the past year. How about any variations in the seasonal cycles.
Something is happening and if it is not some insect or fungal vector then maybe the impact is appearing in other ways as well!
Amphibian populations could be an indicator??

 

Hi T-man,.The biggest change I can think of is heat and drought. The summers of 02,03, then 04 being the worst. Even since then it has been dryer and hot in the summers. Here are some pics from some maples I have been watching since leaf break. When these leave were a week old they had tiny holes deteriating in them. Look at them now a few weeks later. "pics from today". These are from the beautiful Bamberton Dr. in Richmond, the entire street is lined with them 60-70 of them, 30yrs old. Each and every tree looks like this from top to bottom. Last year they didn't look like this till August. I've got too many pics, even a bunch of pin oaks in delta and richmond look like this, and it isnt span worm damage. Note even the Japanese Maple has all the dots deteraiting and existing holes. Tomorrows pics will be from UBC Botanical Gardens, LOL, I'm so interested to see how there trees are doing, that I'm taking the day off to go see. Jim.

 

UBC Botanical Gardens is the most amazing, beautiful, and peaceful place I've ever been! I have tons of pics, but we all know what beautiful trees look like! My personal obsession with this threads content, seems to have brushed right on by the UBCBG. It felt so good the see such wonderful healthy trees and plants. Jim.

 

http://www.geog.le.ac.uk/RSS-2000/abstracts/057.htm
Here is a link that may shed some light on this subject.

 

Thanks T-man, that does shed some light, I had to read it about 10 times, but I get the point as summed up in point4. I guess what I am looking for in this thread also, is just someone else to say that they have noticed the same symptoms. I'm pretty sure that the climate change has to be the culprit. But how do I know for sure? There used to be a day when the odd case of shot hole and some spring span worms riddled our local trees leaves with holes. I'm sorry to go on with this forever, but this problem is getting worse every year here. I'm not a landscaper, or pruner, or arborist, I am just a tree sprayer, for 20yrs everyday, I'm out there looking at, and dealing with plant health. So when something seems wrong I get worried, I wouldn't want all the tree pests to die from starvation, then I would end up starving too. Joking. Jim

 

I am with you in regards to the significance of this phenomenon!
It is something that the government should be aware of as it has definite foreboding for the future. One impact that hits home right away (due to the fact that in my area we have chaparral and that is notorious for summer infernos!) is the creation of combustibles and the plausibility of intensely severe firestorms if any fires were to break out in forests subjected to this kind of deterioration.
However, my concern has to be for the understory and the organisms that depend upon that understory. With continued defoliation of the trees the ability of the trees to survive is lessened and subsequently more radiation is bound to occur upon the understory which will result in higher ground air temps and lower humidity. This could domino into indirect effects upon the herbivores and subsequently the few carnivores and produce major disruption of food chains. Am I overreacting??? I would hope so but that is why I asked earlier about overflights as it is common for aircraft to dump fuel and waste while in flight and often before landing, this was wishful thinking on my part!
However, the gest of your observation is the causatic factors and it is impossible as far as I can tell to really develop an overview that will reflect an accurate appraisal of this phenomenon. Part of this reason lies in the fact that orbital and revolutional forces play into this picture in combination with the slight distortion of the earth crust and revolutional cycle by that massive earthquake and tidal wave down in the eastern Indian Ocean last year. Plus add in ozone depletion, greenhousing of the atmosphere, increased human industrialization around the world and so on and so on and it becomes a giant haystack as the pin becomes reduced to the size of a electron!
Your efforts at identifying the areas of impact will be important and should be brought to the attention of relevant governmental agencies that may have to deal with subsequence consequences!
So I can only encourage continued monitoring, documentation, and imaging as well as alerting appropriate authorities with your findings and conclusions.

 

Thank you for scaring me even more, I think I will make a cash donation to NASA's "colonization of Mars campaign". Kidding. I didn't know there was a government agency that would deal with subsequence consequences in any matter! At least in this Country! And as far as our Ministry of Agriculture goes, unless you have a bird with a runny nose or abnormal cough, its pretty much impossible to get any special attention to a specific matter like trees. Most likely becuase there is not much anyone can do. I really have no idea who to talk to about this. I guess if there was anybody at SFU or UBC that may be doing a study on climate change and it's effects on local trees, I might be able to give some insight. But, I can say that I have been doing a 3 treatment plant health program, along with exsessive watering, that seems to working pretty well so far for my customers. It is only May though. Jim.

 

Hi there, I was just reading your posts and It looks like all the trees on my property are being affected in the same ways as above. I have a recent post under pest management and the general forum with a few pictures. Please take a look if you have time and let me know what you think. It's pretty bad and it looks like the entire neighborhood is like this. I don't know what to do!!!