What's happening to my maples!? (pic heavy)

[Sodbuster]

I have a stand of maples, that are starting to spall and split near the bottom. One tree, pictured below actually fell from rotting at the bottom, and it was still alive. Am I looking at a disease of a bug? Any thoughts. Each pic is a separate tree.

 

[mark cline]

Maples are very susceptible to root rot , from girdling roots, sapwood rot , ganoderma root and butt rot or armillaria root rot . All will cause the bark to split and eventually kill or weaken the tree until it breaks and falls over. Trees in a more dense woodlot seem to fair better than secondary growth in a sparse field or edge of the woodlot. Not much you can do to prevent it , just cut the bad trees for firewood before they become a falling hazard .

 

[Sodbuster]

Thank-you Marc, looks like I have some cutting to do, these trees are pretty close together, so hopefully thinning will help a bit.

 

[jwfirebird]

ive got a bunch of silver maples in my yard, they are a soft tree, they "shed" all the time. branches and other crap. the branches from these are about 2 ft most times at the base of the yard ones. I saw a smaller one down hunting, from wet year and wind. going to be in next years pile

 

[peakbagger]

A generic FYI is that the area looks kind of dense (hard to tell in pictures). There is something called timber stand improvement which calls for picking the best tree in a 50 foot circle and then cutting every other competing tree. That encourages the remaining trees to grow and develop a crown. Lots of things can take down trees in an overstocked woodland, its natural pruning unfortunately nature doesn't necessarily pick the best tree to survive and usually what happens is the whole stand gets stagnant. Far better to take out the crap sooner and let the good trees get all the growth.

Over the years I have seen trees cut out of pruned woods and it can be quite impressive to see the trend in increased ring growth, it takes a couple of years for the remaining trees to take advantage of the additional light and nutrients but once they do does rings will show wider summer wood

 

[Manly]

One of those trees looks like it took a lightning strike.

 

[Sodbuster]

A generic FYI is that the area looks kind of dense (hard to tell in pictures). There is something called timber stand improvement which calls for picking the best tree in a 50 foot circle and then cutting every other competing tree. That encourages the remaining trees to grow and develop a crown. Lots of things can take down trees in an overstocked woodland, its natural pruning unfortunately nature doesn't necessarily pick the best tree to survive and usually what happens is the whole stand gets stagnant. Far better to take out the crap sooner and let the good trees get all the growth.

Over the years I have seen trees cut out of pruned woods and it can be quite impressive to see the trend in increased ring growth, it takes a couple of years for the remaining trees to take advantage of the additional light and nutrients but once they do does rings will show wider summer wood

Yes, when I look at it now, things are way too tight in there, looks like I'll be burning some Maple in the next couple of years. Never mind that Oak, that was a legit blow down, last year. Funny thing is, it's still alive.

 

[Jeffm1]

Sasquatch sharping his claws.

 

[Sodbuster]

Sasquatch sharping his claws.

LOL, I knew it!! That or a HideBehind.

 

[Jeffm1]

LOL, I knew it!! That or a HideBehind.

Proof positive!