What's killing the oaks?

[bigealta]

A number of large and mid size oaks are dieing off at my rental property. It's mostly woods in the immediate area and about a mile from the ocean in Central NJ.
4 have died or are dieing in about a 100 ft diameter. Others in the area are also seeing their oak die. There is no clear bug infestation that is noticeable on the bark, no holes in the bark. A tree guy said it's some disease but no specifics.

Anyone have any insight?

 

[moresnow]

We have suffering Oak here as well. Nothing obvious for cause. Turning brown and dropping leaves. I've heard nobody locally speak of the apparent issue.

 

[Eman85]

My oaks seem to be doing well but many trees are showing signs of stress. It takes a year or 2 after some of the odd weather for the tree to show signs. I'd say any periods of drought or unusual warm weather seems to be having an effect.

 

[MongoMongoson]

We have oak wilt here. I hope it is not that.

Oak wilt - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[bigealta]

We have oak wilt here. I hope it is not that.

Oak wilt - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Oh man that doesn't sound good. Yeah sure feels like that could be what's going on here.

 

[MongoMongoson]

I don't even want to bring oak home anymore.
Red oaks are most susceptible, and I don't have any on this property. Everything I have here is in the white oak family. Even so, I don't like taking the risk.

Now I have a tree service dropping wood at my place, so I get whatever they drop. It is going to go somewhere, and if he is dropping it here it is because he cut it locally. It has not moved far... so I guess that is good.

 

[Ashful]

Yeah, it sure feels like those of us who heat with wood are doomed, esp. with oak being such a predominant species for heating, in our area. My wood stacks were nearly 100% oak for many years, prior to EAB killing all of our ash off. Now I'm stacking ash to replace the oak we're burning, but that's only temporary... just another year or three, until all the ash are gone.

It seems fungicidal treatment is effective, but fungicides can be crazy-expensive, and the window between display of symptoms and required treatment is so short (weeks?) that most might go undetected, until it is too late to save them.

 

[ScottLewis]

I have had 5 big oak trees keep over dead here in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

 

[AstroBoy]

We have suffering Oak here as well. Nothing obvious for cause. Turning brown and dropping leaves. I've heard nobody locally speak of the apparent issue.

@moresnow I see you’re in Iowa. Visiting family in eastern Iowa a few weeks ago, both of my brothers (one in Decorah, one in Iowa City) mentioned oak wilt. The map on the Wikipedia page shows most of eastern Iowa affected as of 2017 - it may have spread farther since then.

@bigealta NJ looks unaffected by oak wilt as of that map, but of course things spread. I couldn’t easily find a newer map.

 

[ScottLewis]

That's supposed to say I've had 5 oak trees keel over dead.

 

[ScottLewis]

Never heard of oak wilt before. I just looked up the oak wilt map. This affects only a tiny part of North Carolina, and I am right in the middle of the affected area. I guess my trees died of oak wilt.

 

[AstroBoy]

This page has a subsection on oak wilt in NJ - it says not yet detected in NJ, but has been detected in both the Philadelphia area (d’oh) and Brooklyn. The picture of leaves shown there might give an indication of whether you have something similar - tips die first, region along the midline stays green longest.

Related to your other thread on sharing that wood, if it is oak wilt, unfortunately it can be spread by moving firewood…

 

[bigealta]

This page has a subsection on oak wilt in NJ - it says not yet detected in NJ, but has been detected in both the Philadelphia area (d’oh) and Brooklyn. The picture of leaves shown there might give an indication of whether you have something similar - tips die first, region along the midline stays green longest.

Related to your other thread on sharing that wood, if it is oak wilt, unfortunately it can be spread by moving firewood…

Thanks for this link.
Looks like another possibility could be "bacterial leaf scorch (BLS) "
But it says it's a slow killer and my oaks are dieing rapidly. In just a year or 2.

i just talked to My friend in the same area and his oaks are having the same symptoms as mine. Tops of trees start to die then soon after the trees are dead.

Yeah i guess the sharing of these oaks is probably not a good idea.

 

[moresnow]

@moresnow I see you’re in Iowa. Visiting family in eastern Iowa a few weeks ago, both of my brothers (one in Decorah, one in Iowa City) mentioned oak wilt. The map on the Wikipedia page shows most of eastern Iowa affected as of 2017 - it may have spread farther since then.

@bigealta NJ looks unaffected by oak wilt as of that map, but of course things spread. I couldn’t easily find a newer map.

I've concluded the Oak wilt must be the issue as well.
Coincidentally my wife and I just returned from Decorah a few minutes ago. We have a couple permanent trailers up on the trout streams. Beauty area and great fishing. Hard to beat. Up there all the time.

 

[Ashful]

This page has a subsection on oak wilt in NJ - it says not yet detected in NJ, but has been detected in both the Philadelphia area (d’oh) and Brooklyn. The picture of leaves shown there might give an indication of whether you have something similar - tips die first, region along the midline stays green longest.

Related to your other thread on sharing that wood, if it is oak wilt, unfortunately it can be spread by moving firewood…

I have a friend who's lost most or all of his oak to wilt, in the booming metropolis of Obelisk PA, before 2020. I think there's often a pretty large gap between what homeowners on the ground are seeing, and what's getting confirmed and reported trough slow bureaucratic state government departments and sites.

And yes, "booming metropolis" is a joke. You could have lived your entire life within 10 miles of Obelisk, and still never heard of it.

 

[Wisco Shepherd]

We have oak wilt here. I hope it is not that.

Oak wilt - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Yep I'm in western WI and lots of red oaks dying. I am very cautious about transporting stuff I find but my wood processing and storage is in the middle of a field so hoping to mitigate that. Minimal oaks on my property tho lots of Elm and Silver Maple.

 

[brenndatomu]

We have a lil red oak grove in the woods at work that is all but gone from what I believe to be the wilt...it started with the western most tree about 15 years ago, and one by one we are down to either the last one, or next to last...the rest in that row are white oak I think...so far they look fine.

 

[old greybeard]

This is depressing. Watched all my Ash die. My hemlocks are dying, I have treated 400, but it appears inevitable. Lost 5% of my oaks to gypsy moths 2 years ago, would have been worse but we sprayed. My last native chestnut died, and now this.
Red oaks are my #1 tree for acorns, our game is now depending on them.
All this global warming bs while ignoring our forests being destroyed by invasives.

 

[Wisco Shepherd]

This is depressing. Watched all my Ash die. My hemlocks are dying, I have treated 400, but it appears inevitable. Lost 5% of my oaks to gypsy moths 2 years ago, would have been worse but we sprayed. My last native chestnut died, and now this.
Red oaks are my #1 tree for acorns, our game is now depending on them.
All this global warming bs while ignoring our forests being destroyed by invasives.

Yep, If we keep going this way all we will have left in my area will be poplar, box elder, and silver maple. If only the invasives went after those instead (Joking, mostly).

 

[brenndatomu]

All this global warming bs while ignoring our forests being destroyed by invasives.

Yep...and all the while importing more crap every day!

 

[Eman85]

On the bright side we'll have plenty of firewood.

 

[Forester21]

One of the sure signs of oak wilt is a fast die off starting at the top. The leaves are almost always partially green and partially brown when they drop. In Michigan symptoms most often begin to show in July. Oak wilt is a fungus that plugs the trees vascular system and causes it to die. It is spread by root grafting and sap feeding beetles. Again in Michigan the beetles most often spread the fungus between April 15th and July 15th. They are attracted to sap from broken branches or freshly cut wood and they transport the fungus from tree to tree.
Oak wilt has killed thousands of trees here and once it gets established it keeps spreading by root grafts until there are no more oaks or the roots are severed. We've had some success using vibratory plows to sever the roots. You might contact a local Forester to confirm, often there are Foresters that are employed by counties or University Extension to assist landowners free of charge with these types of issues. Other things that kill oak in a similar fashion is Oak Decline, Two-lined Chestnut Borer, and multiple years of gypsy moth infestation which makes them more susceptible to the first two.