Blackened maple tree

[RBJtree]

Alright, I'm not good with disease and things like that. My customers maple tree has a blackened trunk. Looks like mold or mildew to me. Does not rub off or even transfer color. Here is a bad picture. Anyone know what it is?

 

[JD3000]

Perhaps gloomy scale or something more noticeable like cottony maple scale

 

[RBJtree]

Google images agrees with gloomy scale.

 

[JD3000]

Perhaps, gotta find the critter though

 

[RBJtree]

I don't do treatments, so any info from me is pretty much anecdotal and comes with a recomendation for bartlett or davey, who are the only companies around here that do treatment. He was having an Ash treated yearly for borers, so if he chooses to treat the maples I assume he could use the same company.

 

[evo]

I don't do treatments, so any info from me is pretty much anecdotal and comes with a recomendation for bartlett or davey, who are the only companies around here that do treatment. He was having an Ash treated yearly for borers, so if he chooses to treat the maples I assume he could use the same company.

It might be far fetched, but I see one massive SGR.. I know scale is attracted to water stressed trees, you could remove the girdling root.. Give the tree what it needs and then pests aren’t too big of a deal

 

[ThatsNotMaple]

If you can't find the gloomy scale this might just be a harmless fungal issue. Around here lots of Sugars turn black, but I always just chalked it up from some sort of minor mechanical damage, fermentation, and adventitious fungus.

What are common treatments for gloomy scale? An initial google search suggested some pretty minor schedules and mostly cultural stuff.