Paper Birch

[diltree]

I have a customer who recently contacted me about defoliation on a mature paper birch. I immediately identified an infestation of birch leaf miner. Yet, at the top six feet of the trunk of the birch i found symptoms I am not familiar with at this point. The bark on the trunk exhibited areas of black, as if the bark had been burnt by a torch; in addition in these areas a red ooze resembling almost a red hydraulic fluid, oozed out from the tree. I thought this may be a result of bronze birch borer, but recent research has lead me to believe that the symptoms do not match that pest specifically. Is this the result of a fungus or disease I am not familiar with??? The assistance of a more experienced arborist would be greatly appreciated. We treat disease and fungus with micro-injection......is there an injection that can treat these symptoms????

 

[diltree]

some pics

 

[NYCHA FORESTER]

Bronze birch borer and leaf minor seem to go hand in hand. Micro-inject with bidrin or whatever is labled for those two critters in your state. Good luck!
Over the next 3-5 years you will have to treat for these guys! (every year). Merit seems to work very well to control them but it must be applied in the early spring (soil drench) if you label allows it.

 

[diltree]

Is the red ozze in the pic. i posted; a result of the broonze birch borer, as well as the black trail going up the trunk...those symptoms were not in any of my refrences on the broonze birch borer..im really at a lost for words

 

[treeseer]

..im really at a lost for words

me too dil, we got no papyrifera here so i'm shootin in the dark. where the bark is stained and oozing, trace/peel away the dead bark and see what's underneath. if there's a borer thats your cause, if not it may be fungal/bacterial.

give it the sniff test too, and post more pics (good job on those) of the dissected dead parts.

Sounds like you're in good hands w nyccha. Our betula nigras etc don't get that kind of stuff much, thank goodness.

 

[arboromega]

i would agree the bronze birch borer idea.

 

[Tree Wizard]

If the "ooze" is coming from D shaped holes the cause is bronze birch borer. If it just seems to be coming from cracks in the bark, the problem is probably some kind of canker. Birch will get Nectria canker plus a few others.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

We don't have Birch Leaf Miners here any more. They used to be on virtually every Birch I looked at. It's been about 7 years since I've seen them.
Anybody else have the same observation?

Merit is a good soil applied product for borers. I'm not, nor have I ever been, a fan of micro-injection. When you drill into the trunk, you set the tree up for failure later on. Repeated treatments mean even worse long term effects.
I do a limited number of Macro injections each year and only do those when it's a choice between that or death of the tree, and then you need to be very conscious of the possibility of the trunk failing.
I recall Shigo telling a story about a court case where an arborist injured a tree and some years later it fell and killed a child. He looked at the tree and was able to tell within weeks, and even days he claimed, when the tree was injured, which was the same time the defendant was on the property working.
If you are out there drilling thousands of holes in hundreds of trees, there is substantial liability there.
Even if you don't fret much about liability, it's bad tree care to damage it so, trying to help it.

 

[arboromega]

mike, out of curiosity, what is your stand on DED injections where the tree may very well die if not injected? i have done some injections on elm trees where the basal bark has actually been blown out from years of pressure during the injections. just curious what others think.

 

[diltree]

I can see your opinion mike and I understand where you are coming from. Still I feel that small drill holes used during micro injection damage a tree no more then the cuts we make when we prune a tree. Both are un-natural acts that are performed for the over all benefit of the tree. I have seen many stressed tree's completely rebound because of injection, and I believe it is an effective method to treat declining trees.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Ded injections are one of those "better of two evils" things. I like to see the injection sites as low as possible and be the "macro injection" type, not the lower volume injections of some types of applications.

Micro injections are nothing like the cuts one makes when properly pruning. To understand the difference, you need to study up on Shigo's CODIT theory.
Each injection site will be compartmentalized. If you think about a cross section of a trunk, with a series of walled off areas, you'll understand that you have almost girdled the tree. Then consider that same cross section after several years of injections. CODIT, in this case, essentially means the entire circumference of the tree will be walled off. This means that down the road, the hollow will be the same size as the tree at the time of the injections.
In addition to the type, location, and size of the injuries micro injections make, there is also the toxicity of the concentrated chemicals that are being injected, which also effects the size of the injury.
We were on a site one time and noticed a declining elm. It had been micro injected for years, I assume to protect it from DED. We warned the customer about the condition of the tree and recommended removal. Two weeks later the tree failed and landed on the customer, who sustained serious injuries. As we dissected the tree, it was evident that the injections were the problem. At each site there was an area of punky wood, and all the areas had grown together creating one big rotten trunk.
Many of the older injections were the bigger capsule type, and the sites were up and down the trunk as high as 5 feet, but I mention it to make my point about injections.

 

[diltree]

Ha Ha.....who is this shigo......and what is this codit you speak of.....could you stay away from words like compartmentalize...thats a really big word...Interesting point though Mike!!!