Woah! That tree died FAST!....Or Did It?

John_Hartenburg

John_Hartenburg

I have a shagbark hickory tree in my backyard. It was showing some signs of the leaves turning brown over the past couple of weeks

So last weekend I went out of town and when I came home one of my shagbark hickory trees had 100% of it's leaves totally brown. The tree appears to be dead.

This tree gets plenty of water since the property is irrigated by sprinklers for the lawn. I wouldn't say it gets over watered, but during the summer months it would get the same amount of water that the rest of the lawn gets.

I have 5 other trees of the same type on the property and none of them have had this happen to them.

What do you think......is this tree really dead? I would hate to have someone come over here to remove it only to have it not be dead.

Anyone seen this before?
 
Have you done any investigation? Does green cambium exist? Are there buds? Are twigs pliable? Why did the leaves turn brown? Have you investigated the soils for percolation, perched water tables, water saturation levels, oxygen content, sulphur compounds etc.? Have you investigated the spinkler system and how water is distributed? Have you looked at the fine roots and see if they are white, brown or red? Have you sent a sample of root to be tested for phytophthora?
 
Is it a large mature tree? Was it planted or naturally occurring? I've heard of trees apparently dying quickly in the unusual summer that many regions are experiencing, but suddenly dying because of lack of water for a few weeks seems unlikely except in newly planted trees.
In addition to the other clues to look for already mentioned,
take a proper look at the soil in the top 12 to 18 inches. Irrigation systems can be misleading. Sometimes they just get the top few inches over and over again and nothing sinks in.
But I suspect some other cause.
 
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