Saving my elm

MikeDontEatThat

MikeDontEatThat

Location
Mass.
Took a walk into my back yard and discovered my 114" DBH Ulmus americana has sporadic die off of branches.

Took a climb up to the top for a canopy inspection and found what appeared to be galleries of elm bark beetle on the dead branches. Also saw some wilted leaves at the top. This has not been a dry year for us either.

I'll give the lay out of the site... Pasture land 60+ years ago grown into the typical pine stand of N.E.. Tree was left there to mark a shallow well dug 100+ years ago. Immediate area is slightly swampy and mucky year round. I've never pruned this tree. There are other Ulmus americanas around but not with in 1000 or so feet.

No site disturbance or grade changes.

This is the one tree on our 10 forested acres that I would want to save. Cost of Mauget's fungisol is very high and they recommend 57 capsules for that tree (Info I found was capsules = DBH/2)

I have a MA pesticide license but no Mauget certification.
I would greatly appericate any input to save my elm.
 
I hate to say it, But there is no "cheap" effective way to save that Ulmus. I would highly recomend a systemic injection (Macro-infusion) of arbo-tect fungicide. It does require some setup but in the long run it is a proven control (2year). By the way your much better preventing DED than trying to treat it. Good Luck!
 
Treat with Arbortect for sure and look into bark tracing which is basically cutting out the pathogen. Add an insecticide that is compatible with Arbotect when you inject. This will kill the beetles which are responsible for spreading the fungus.

Good luck

PS: Read the Label
 
Thanks guys! Can you recommend any good micro injections? Leaning more towards that now after reading. I'm going to crown clean when winter rolls around and do everything I can in my power to protect the tree

gazer, looked into bark tracing neat stuff but this tree maybe too big.
 
I had a suggestion of pruning any dead and infected wood back to clean uninfected with a sterilized handsaw and then to paint the cuts with an insecticide... Any opinions? Combine with systemic fungicide?

Tree is fading fast and going to be turned into furniture if it doesn't go well.

Thanks,

Mike
 
I would suggest the therapeutic (heavy) dose of Alamo
asap and then do some pruning. This will make the beetles
irrelevant for now.
Tim
 
With flagging and then selective pruning? There's not the vascular movement to accept a "therapeutic" dose. Once wilting occurs, it indicates a blockage in the vascular cells, whether by tylosis or total fungal load...Alamo is fungistatic, which only inhibits SEXUAL reproduction of the disease. That window is long past where affect is productive and any effective translocation of the dose is possible.

If only everyone got back all the millions spent on injections of infected trees, there would've been potential investment to protect healthy trees instead. And even there, we have our doubts.
 
You know, I never considered Oakwilt's theory until he posted it. I think he is correct that using a systemic fungiside is Mute on vascular clogging fungi!

I am attending a workshop Thursday and Friday. Here is a link to the site http://www.forestalliance.ca/2009-insect-and-disease-conference/ . If anyone has a question they would like me to ask, post it here or PM me.

Don't forget this is a Canadian workshop with Canuck speakers. We don't have some of these pests here yet, and the list of registered chemicals is no where near a broad as in the US.

I appreciate your interest and will do my best to find answeres.
 
Act NOW! If you find flagging, beetle galleries and vascular discoloration you're in a bad spot.

consider that you're likely going to have to remove the limb below the next main branch junction to even think that you may amputate the clogging vascular system. What will you have left if you do that? How far down the crown structure have you found galleries/discoloration?

ONce the vascular system starts to clog up top the uptake of macro or micro injections/infusions is curtailed.

You're facing a tough battle. I wouldn't wait until winter to do the pruning...get up there at dawn tomorrow and amputate what you have to.
 
Removing all the flagging and wilting on this tree is beyond a daunting task. The crown spread is about 75' wide and has so many leaders and junctions. I have an access line into one of the lower leaders and it nearly has my 200' line tips even.

Not sure if it is even possible to get most of the flagging the way the tree is shaped. I'll keep lopping of what I can reach to at least make me feel like I tried.

As things develop it may look like this maybe the end for it.

Thanks again all!
 
I have a DED elm to remove this next weekend.
The injections failed and the arborist ringed the tree with a chainsaw to keep the beetles from migrating down the trunk, I've not seen this before, is this recommended?
 
Girdling (or ringing) is to stop the flow of water containing the DED fungus from moving through the roots and into another adjacent tree which may be root grafted to the infected tree. It has nothing to due with the beetles. They actually fly.

Couple of other things

you'll find micro injections to not be effective, for proper distribution you must macro inject

and you cannot inject until you are certain you have removed all fungus from the tree. You need to find the end of the staining, then remove well below that to a suitable union. A good rule of thumb is, at least 8 to 10 feet of clearwood should be removed below the end of the stain.

Im not even going to get into the whole Arbotect vs Alamo bit.
 
Adding back to what TomD suggested - amputation. We've had good response (a general way of saying infected trees were saved from progressive overhead infections) from selective harsh pruning on oaks with isolated flags indicating localized and pre-systemic infection. Trees treated as such were brutalized in the mid-80's, today are surviving without disease symptoms. Not pretty as landscape specimens, but alive and hosting enough advantitious growth to replace former canopies in leaf area at least. Patient and desperate landowners not willing to finance injections or chance experiments. Nothing in the literature supports this, but so what? It's raw field work.

Your elm sounds like an impressive tree - not many around here can eat all 120ft of my HyVee. That being said and the effort to get up there and selectively and effective excise the sick parts and proximity tissues, good luck in trying. I might encourage you to get some zinc and copper sulfate to the roots asap, delivered or carried in solution with Medina Soil Activator, pH'd down to 5.2 and a dollop of soap as an adjuvant for uptake. Fagacearum or other Ceratocystis as parasitic vascular fungi respond to this as Micheal Jackson was to the light of day and the disclosure of addiction. Ph is key, copper the killer, and Zinc for effective tylosis, soap the lubricant to get it there. Medina delivers it all and stimulates microbial work to enhance the salvo and keep it going. There are natural enemies to DED, just not on the prescription list of drugs for sale or in the literature of research to push those sales.
 
What a nightmare!

jp
grin.gif
 
Out of curiosity where in Ma is your tree located?

I worked for a boro in central Pa and I remember taking care of a bunch of elms and having to cut out diseased section of a few. The climber told me you have to cut about 12 feet back to something clean to make sure your in good tissue. Not sure if that is sound advice or just something that was his rule.
 
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