fore
Omono
A real disappointment I'm sure Alex, it was a nice one.
Japanese Maple Kiyo Hime
- Thread starter Alex DeRuiter
- Start date
Dav4
Drop Branch Murphy
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What happened, exactly?
MACH5
Imperial Masterpiece
Alex had mentioned it was Verticillium Wilt. Was a tree with very nice potential. I'm very sorry to hear 
Dav4
Drop Branch Murphy
- Messages
- 13,480
- Reaction score
- 32,158
- USDA Zone
- 6a
I realize that...I'm just wondering how the diagnosis was made. I have been growing maples as landscape trees and in pots for 15 years and I have lost my share of trees, but I can't say the post mortem ever pointed to V. wilt. I'm just wondering if there might have actually been something else contributing to the tree's demise.Alex had mentioned it was Verticillium Wilt. Was a tree with very nice potential. I'm very sorry to hear
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Alex DeRuiter
Chumono
Thanks everyone. *sniffle* lol -- Yeah, it had some potential. I never took repotting shots, but it had a pretty rad nebari. I had plans...O how I had plans. . . .
Dave, I suppose I'm not 100% sure it had V. wilt, but from what I've read about it, it seems to fit pretty well. The bark at the base and all of the branches slowly became black, the leaves all shriveled up within about a week and the tree was completely black within about two or three weeks. The tree was placed on the ground in a semi-shaded area for a couple weeks, and per Al, V. wilt is ground-borne.
Here's a couple pictures of the tree when the branches had all died and the black at the bottom of the trunk was beginning to show. Do you think I could be wrong about this? I'm definitely not sure, so if you have any other thoughts on it, let me know. This way I can prevent this happening to other trees. Any input is definitely appreciated.
Dave, I suppose I'm not 100% sure it had V. wilt, but from what I've read about it, it seems to fit pretty well. The bark at the base and all of the branches slowly became black, the leaves all shriveled up within about a week and the tree was completely black within about two or three weeks. The tree was placed on the ground in a semi-shaded area for a couple weeks, and per Al, V. wilt is ground-borne.
Here's a couple pictures of the tree when the branches had all died and the black at the bottom of the trunk was beginning to show. Do you think I could be wrong about this? I'm definitely not sure, so if you have any other thoughts on it, let me know. This way I can prevent this happening to other trees. Any input is definitely appreciated.
Smoke
Ignore-Amus
Trees on the ground do not necessarily mean the tree is doomed to V.wilt. What usually happens is that the fungus is in the ground in close proximity to the tree. The soil is disturbed due to watering splash...or water runoff from a roof (gutters in the winter and condensation lines from A.C. in the summer) which splash infected soil particles on the leaves of the tree. Elevate all trees at least on a couple concrete blocks with a couple 2x4's as a bench at the minimum. Not all plants directly on the ground will suffer from the effects of this fungus, maples seem much more suseptable when on the ground. Many other plants like barberry can suffer from its effects.
Many other plants like roses can carry the fungus for months before showing signs. Do not let your wife prune other plants in the garden with shears for bonsai. I am not religious about disenfecting my tools and I have only lost one tree to V. wilt in 30 years and that was a plant on the ground in a grow box next to a gutter downspout!
I am much more concerned about fireblight on my pyracanthas than V. wilt on my maples. Another disease carried on tools and which there is no cure.
Many other plants like roses can carry the fungus for months before showing signs. Do not let your wife prune other plants in the garden with shears for bonsai. I am not religious about disenfecting my tools and I have only lost one tree to V. wilt in 30 years and that was a plant on the ground in a grow box next to a gutter downspout!
I am much more concerned about fireblight on my pyracanthas than V. wilt on my maples. Another disease carried on tools and which there is no cure.
Alex DeRuiter
Chumono
Thanks for elaborating on that, Al. I was wondering if Maples are just more susceptible to V. wilt than other species since this tree declined so quickly while everything else around it appeared (and still appears) completely unaffected. Now, this could also be an indication that it was something else, but I suppose there's still a chance it may have been V. wilt.
I had this tree on the ground at the bottom of a very small hill that gets a little more shade throughout the day. The area was pretty clear but still have some weeds here and there. It was right beside a Bloodgood Japanese maple that is planted in the ground and still healthy. It was also next to another Japanese maple (not sure what cultivar, but it was a dwarf green-leaf variety) that also ended up dying. I initially thought that this Kiyohime and the other dying maple were in such bad condition because of the lack of light, though that area is still well lit. The thing that maples me think it was V. wilt is that when I would water, I noticed a LOT of mud being splashed around from the water, and it surely made it onto the soil surface (and stop calling me Shirley).
Buuuuuut, me being as inexperienced as I am, I'm far from absolutely positive that V. wilt is the culprit here...but in regards to the description of symptoms and the mode of transmission (right terminology there?), it seems plausible.
What say ye?
I had this tree on the ground at the bottom of a very small hill that gets a little more shade throughout the day. The area was pretty clear but still have some weeds here and there. It was right beside a Bloodgood Japanese maple that is planted in the ground and still healthy. It was also next to another Japanese maple (not sure what cultivar, but it was a dwarf green-leaf variety) that also ended up dying. I initially thought that this Kiyohime and the other dying maple were in such bad condition because of the lack of light, though that area is still well lit. The thing that maples me think it was V. wilt is that when I would water, I noticed a LOT of mud being splashed around from the water, and it surely made it onto the soil surface (and stop calling me Shirley).
Buuuuuut, me being as inexperienced as I am, I'm far from absolutely positive that V. wilt is the culprit here...but in regards to the description of symptoms and the mode of transmission (right terminology there?), it seems plausible.
What say ye?
0soyoung
Imperial Masterpiece
I also am skeptical about verticillium being the cause of your troubles. It could be another fungus, nectria, for example. Nectria will cause sudden 'flame out' (go to brown and stay on tree) of the foliage and cambial death. It becomes obvious toward fall when little orange fruiting bodies appear on the bark (the infection spreads further in the cambium, toward the roots, than these appear). Nectria is easily spread by pruning tools.
Verticillium, on the other hand, tends to be in the xylem and usally causes rings (or near rings) of dicoloration in the wood. I don't see this in your pictures. While black bark often goes with verticillium, it is not an indicator of verticillium (i.e., bark can turn black from a number of causes though it indicates cambial death). I have a nurseryman who claims that one can prevent verticillium by pruning only when there will be no rain for the following 3 days, giving time for callus to form on the cut. I note that this comports with Smoke's "... splash infected soil particles on the leaves of the tree".
These symptoms could also occur because of root damage - roots died from lack of water or from too high a temperature. There is surprising ignorance that roots stop growing at soil temperatures around 95F and die at temperatures of 105F or so upto 115F depending upon specie.
I cannot tell you what happened, but there is a tendency (especially with Japanese maples) to just blame verticillium. Had you sent one of the black twigs to a lab they could have told you if it was verticillium or not. Else it seems, people generally just guess and if it dies, blame verticillium because there is no cure.
Verticillium, on the other hand, tends to be in the xylem and usally causes rings (or near rings) of dicoloration in the wood. I don't see this in your pictures. While black bark often goes with verticillium, it is not an indicator of verticillium (i.e., bark can turn black from a number of causes though it indicates cambial death). I have a nurseryman who claims that one can prevent verticillium by pruning only when there will be no rain for the following 3 days, giving time for callus to form on the cut. I note that this comports with Smoke's "... splash infected soil particles on the leaves of the tree".
These symptoms could also occur because of root damage - roots died from lack of water or from too high a temperature. There is surprising ignorance that roots stop growing at soil temperatures around 95F and die at temperatures of 105F or so upto 115F depending upon specie.
I cannot tell you what happened, but there is a tendency (especially with Japanese maples) to just blame verticillium. Had you sent one of the black twigs to a lab they could have told you if it was verticillium or not. Else it seems, people generally just guess and if it dies, blame verticillium because there is no cure.
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daygan
Chumono
Ha Ha! Maples on the mind much?
I love it. You can't edit that now! *hem*.. not to make light of your maple loss... sorry
Alex DeRuiter
Chumono
That was extremely informative. I will admit first to being ignorant about the temperatures at which roots begin to die and at which temperatures root growth stops (though I've been told about heat dormancy, I never took the time to research it much); and will also admit to defaulting at virticillium because it's incurable -- this is something that gave me comfort as I wouldn't have to claim responsibility for the tree's death.
Your suggestion that death may have been caused by root damage is definitely plausible. Being that I work an odd shift, I can only water in the morning and at night. During the hot afternoons I must rely on my fiance to water, and she's not always available and/or reliable. There was one particular day when we had an unseasonal heat wave, at which time the soil for this tree did indeed get very dry. Lesson learned: rely on noone, even/especially your future spouse.
As for lab testing, I wasn't even aware one could do such a thing. I think the tree is still in my dumpster, but I wonder if it's still testable.
Hah!!! I definitely won't change it because it's far too funny. In my defense, today was a l-o-o-o-o-o-n-g day at work.Ha Ha! Maples on the mind much?
0soyoung
Imperial Masterpiece
The Michigan State U. Extension suggests Cornell U. has a lab that does the test inexpensively (IIRC $10) and that there are others that also do the test for a reasonable fee. Your twigs ought to be testable, but I suggest you contact your local MSU Extension office.
BTW, I just came across a scholarly paper while surfin' that cited Verticillium doesn't grow above 86F. I recall others saying that Verticillium wilt characteristically happens in the rainy, wet, cool of spring time - hadn't thought about it before, but clearly 'flame out' in the heat of the summer is a contra-indicator of Verticillium wilt.
Alex DeRuiter
Chumono
You are awesome!! Thank you so much for taking the time to actually find a place around my that performs these tests. I have no clue why I didn't even think of MSU since I've taken a couple tours there before...but again, it's been a long week. lol
That's great information -- can you post the link to that paper (or PDF it?
)? Sounds like that pretty much rules out virticillium.
I read something last night about dwarf varieties of Japanese maples that said aeration in the roots is absolutely necessary and they're extremely sensitive to suffocating. I had some fertilizer tablets on this tree early in the spring, and after a couple hard rains and watering they were completely absorbed into the turface. I checked the soil when I noticed the leaves starting to shrivel and found that it was very dense because those fert tablets disintegrated into the turface. Do you think this could have been a factor?
That's great information -- can you post the link to that paper (or PDF it?
)? Sounds like that pretty much rules out virticillium.I read something last night about dwarf varieties of Japanese maples that said aeration in the roots is absolutely necessary and they're extremely sensitive to suffocating. I had some fertilizer tablets on this tree early in the spring, and after a couple hard rains and watering they were completely absorbed into the turface. I checked the soil when I noticed the leaves starting to shrivel and found that it was very dense because those fert tablets disintegrated into the turface. Do you think this could have been a factor?
garywood
Chumono
0soyoung
Imperial Masterpiece
-- can you post the link to that paper (or PDF it?
I read something last night about dwarf varieties of Japanese maples that said aeration in the roots is absolutely necessary and they're extremely sensitive to suffocating. I had some fertilizer tablets on this tree early in the spring, and after a couple hard rains and watering they were completely absorbed into the turface. I checked the soil when I noticed the leaves starting to shrivel and found that it was very dense because those fert tablets disintegrated into the turface. Do you think this could have been a factor?
Link to another, simpler version of the paper: http://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/files/ho/other/fs9630.pdf
Fertilizer 'disintegration into the turface' could indeed have been a problem because roots adsorb water by osmosis: higher salt concentration in the soil than in the tissue instead sucks water out of the tree! Commonly known as 'fertilizer burn'. Seems reasonable and suggests that you should have dug out all that you could and then washed what was amid the roots out of your MVP. I use Osmacote with trace minerals for convenience (and it is scarcely noticeable on MVP). Osmacote is criticized for being higher release at higher temperatures, but 'disintegration' problems cannot happen using it. I'm sure there are other solutions to your fertilizer disintegration problem.
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Alex DeRuiter
Chumono
Yeah, I know "disintegration into the turface" sounded really awkward. haha -- I just couldn't think of anything better at the time. ;-p
I might have to check out Osmacote at some point -- if for nothing else, at least for the dwarf variety maples since they're so sensitive. I have those tablets on several other trees -- mostly Tridents -- and they're doing fine.
Thanks again for all your help and research. I think I might send a branch in to get tested just for grits and shins.
Hey Gary, I remember seeing a post about that earlier this year or late last year. . . ? It looked very similar, but that black discoloration didn't seem to spread like it appears in some of the pictures I saw of Pseudomonas syringae. In these pictures, it looks like it spreads with a brown line at the edge of the infected part, and it's a very distinct discoloration right at the edge. Mine just started turning black with no noticeable lines. It seemed to start at the branches and go inward towards the trunk, but then I noticed that it started doing the same thing from the base of the tree up the trunk after the branches had all died off. Of course, can't rule anything out just yet.
I might have to check out Osmacote at some point -- if for nothing else, at least for the dwarf variety maples since they're so sensitive. I have those tablets on several other trees -- mostly Tridents -- and they're doing fine.
Thanks again for all your help and research. I think I might send a branch in to get tested just for grits and shins.
Hey Gary, I remember seeing a post about that earlier this year or late last year. . . ? It looked very similar, but that black discoloration didn't seem to spread like it appears in some of the pictures I saw of Pseudomonas syringae. In these pictures, it looks like it spreads with a brown line at the edge of the infected part, and it's a very distinct discoloration right at the edge. Mine just started turning black with no noticeable lines. It seemed to start at the branches and go inward towards the trunk, but then I noticed that it started doing the same thing from the base of the tree up the trunk after the branches had all died off. Of course, can't rule anything out just yet.
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