First Time Poster - Long Time Lurker - Holly Tree - Weird Discoloration - Red

[LawnGuyLovesTrees]

Good morning gang - hope everyone in the colder climates is hanging in there...

I sent these pictures to our local extension office - with no luck...they were a bit confused by it...You guys on these forums have a wealth of knowledge - any idea what's attaching my native Holly Trees? These were planted in Spring of 2020. Looked decent all Summer...typical stress of transplanting but none of them looking Ungodly sick...until I noticed this late Oct.

Couple of notes:
I noticed it right after fertilizing them via a root drench of MicroGreene / Kelp / RGS and AIR8. Yeah I know it's a lot but there was some cocktail I found online...worked well for most of the other trees.
It's hitting a handful of trees in generally the same area (I have a total of 15)
I should do a soil test which I plan on doing once closer to end of Winter/beginning of Spring.

I can clearly grow grass (well I think I can) but I'm a rookie when it comes to Trees/Shrubs/General landscaping - I want to get better in this arena.

Diagnosing/fixing these will be a good learning lesson for me. Thank you in advance!

 

[Raintree]

Your extension office can't identify leaf spot on holly?

 

[LawnGuyLovesTrees]

Your extension office can't identify leaf spot on holly?

Yes I guess it must have been an intern.

Should I go as far as removing these leaves or just letting things stay status quo?

Leaf spot makes sense because it tries to come after my lawn every single Fall...

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[LawnGuyLovesTrees]

Ok - so the leaf spot has basically spread to all 15 American Holly trees at this point.

Should I just let it ride out and hope new growth helps keep these trees alive? Can I spray any fungicide? The black leaf spot is widespread. Some trees have black spots on every leaf. Hoping for the trees to push a lot of new growth...

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[Raintree]

Eliminate any irrigation on foliage.
Prune to increase air flow and sunlight to promote wet leaf dry times.
Apply appropriate fungicide starting at bud break to protect new leaves.
Clean up and remove diseased leaf litter.

 

[LawnGuyLovesTrees]

Thank you @Raintree !

The trees were planted a year ago now. Most are 2 inch caliper and not very thick given the transplant/leaf drop last year.

I will look into the appropriate fungicide to apply after they push new growth in Spring. The odd part is that I was irrigating minimally via a drip system. I never watered them top/down.

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[LawnGuyLovesTrees]

Eliminate any irrigation on foliage.
Prune to increase air flow and sunlight to promote wet leaf dry times.
Apply appropriate fungicide starting at bud break to protect new leaves.
Clean up and remove diseased leaf litter.

Would you spray the entire tree or just the new growth?

Also what do most folks go with when spraying leaf spot on trees?

Propiconazole? Thanks!

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