BLS, a tactical approach

[familytree]

Consider this post a call to arms of sorts. The enemy, bacterial leaf scortch. My weapon, a hunger for knowledge for all things BLS.

I don't know much, just read a few articles. Can it be contained? How does it migrate? Is their a cure or sequence of treatment that can help the tree rebound? What's your strategy?

I'm severly out numbered here and could use all the help I can get.

 

[cerviarborist]

Look at the thread "TGR Article-Good Info"

Toward the end it says that "Bruce Fraedrich with Bartlett Tree Expert Company has recently demonstrated that even bacterial leaf scorch is markedly reduced in red oaks following a soil drench application of paclobutrazol."

"The fungistatic property of paclobutrazol is due to the inhibition of steroid production in fungi, also via the terpenoid pathway (Fig. 3). This is the same mode of action that accounts for the fungistatic property of the class of fungicides known as SBIs or steroid biosynthesis inhibitors. Steroids are essential constituents of membranes.
The increased resistance of paclobutrazol-treated trees to bacteria is not thought to be a direct effect on the pathogen, but rather due to alteration in leaf surface structure (Fig. 5) or even the size of stomatal pores that make infection more difficult."

 

[familytree]

So, if I understand this correctly

Trees are steroids are tough as nails

 

[cerviarborist]

Ja..compairhhddd to da udda flabbly little ghullly trees.

 

[treegazer]

Dr. Hartman at the University of Kentucky has done extensive research on BLS.
Here is a link to one of his papers.
http://www.ca.uky.edu/agcollege/plantpathology/ext_files/PPFShtml/PPFS-OR-W-12.pdf

Injections of Oxytetracycline only slowed the onset of symptoms up to three weeks. Keeping the subject tree as healthy, vigorous and stress free is your best course of action. You will need to prune out dead wood every few years until there is nothing left.

 

[familytree]

So basically I'm putting the tree on hospis?

Any idea on how long I can keep a tree with bls afloat if I make it stress free?

Sounds like removal is a better approach money wise.

 

[treegazer]

10-15 years from the on-set of symptoms.
(That's for the 50 year old pin oaks in Lexington.)