Any idea what killed this one?

stig

stig

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Nice healthy horsechestnut Aesculus hippocastaneum.

I did a light crown lift/ prune job on it 3 years ago. Last year it died all of a sudden.

The bark is coming off in large flakes, so it looks like something ate away the Cambium layer.

I've never seen anything like it before.

We are starting to have problems with Phytophth]ora in Denmark, but somehow it doesn't seem likely.

Neither does Glyphosate poisoning, because there are no neighbours close by that could take offense from the fact that trees cast shade ( I had a case of a poisoned horse chestnut, once)

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Looks like alot of chesnuts here in the UK - I have spend the last 10 years removing hundreds of these - not nice work. Usually called bleeding canker http://www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/INFD-6KYBGV

A little warning,if you are planning to remove the tree, be very careful. The upper crown will have become very brittle & side loading of any anchor point/rigging point is sometimes best minimised. I know you are on top of your game Stig, but every new situation brings it's own problems & stepping gently is sometimes smart :)
 
Sad, but Horse Chestnut does make for woodwork material. :la: Can be very hard on tool edges though, seems to pull up minerals or something from the soil.
 

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Where the entire tree went out of condition at once, I would look for a root problem. Since it affected the whole tree it would most likely be something like phloem necrosis (elm yellows) that kills off the entire root system by starvation, or something environmental that has affected the whole system in the past couple of years. Verticillium or Anthracnose are a couple of options. Let me know what you find.
 
Ha Bob from the pics i thought the same; nice to see your post!
The trunk scar is very old--how wide is it?.

The flare looks buried suspect girdling/dysfunctional roots and/or wilt disease. popping off dead bark and assessing callus on margins of infeciton is a key step in diagnosis, w RCX.

No bleeding lesions visible to my aging eyes.

And thanks Pete for the sig line; i followed Ms. Devlins travails and triumphs back in the day; remarkable lady. 8)
 
treelooker said:
Ha Bob from the pics i thought the same; nice to see your post!
The trunk scar is very old--how wide is it?.

The flare looks buried suspect girdling/dysfunctional roots and/or wilt disease. popping off dead bark and assessing callus on margins of infeciton is a key step in diagnosis, w RCX.

No bleeding lesions visible to my aging eyes.
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Perhaps, but it is very typical of what we observe on a regular basis. I believe the bleeding canker weakens the tree & then a range of secondaries do the majority of the damage - not always killing the tree, some even recover full canopy , however it often leaves the upper structure so weak that we take them down as a safety concern.
 
Good Horse Chestnut is actually one of the more prized woods for woodworking in these parts. Not so much for it's ease in working, it can be tough due to the silicate or whatever the hell is in the wood, but for the visual results the wood can give. Some grain effects can be very striking, and in these parts the tree can get enormous. Glad you like it, Rajan. :) I practically had to give it away to sell that coffee table. :cry:
 
What do they keep in that shed in the background? Sheds can have lots of nasties in them that might leak...?
 
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Hay for the horses, Fi.



Thanks Pete.

We wont be rigging much, since most of it can be dumped. Also there are a few green leaves or sprouting buds on the main leader, so I think it'll be safe for a tie in point.
 
Pretty weak wood. I never cut a tree down but have trimmed some. Are they common there Stig? There must have been a planting fad over here in the 20's or 30's. All the trees seem to be about the same age. All starting to decline.
 
woodworkingboy said:
Good Horse Chestnut is actually one of the more prized woods for woodworking in these parts. Not so much for it's ease in working, it can be tough due to the silicate or whatever the hell is in the wood, but for the visual results the wood can give. Some grain effects can be very striking, and in these parts the tree can get enormous. Glad you like it, Rajan. :) I practically had to give it away to sell that coffee table. :cry:
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Shut the front door! If I had space in my tiny ass house I would be all over that like white on rice!
 
Maybe because that table will only last a few hundred years, but more likely it's because lots of people in this country are friggen stupid, to be honest.

Thanks for the compliments.
 
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We dropped it today.
It was a lot more dead than I thought. Completely dry and too brittle to chip, so we broke the law and burned it instead.

Still safe to climb, but no lowering of branches, so we went with plan B and took some weight off the side towards the house and felled it across a lilac hedge ( just call me Murph or Mr collateral damage :lol:)

Taking some weight off the back side turned out to be a wise move, since the hingewood had almost no fiber strength. A serious cellulose eater had been at work in the tree, but I still don't know what killed it.
 

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Yep, but just low enough that they can drive across it.
Took almost no time, since the wood was so decayed.

Another arborist stopped by when he passed the worksite and saw my truck.

He thought it was the Horse chestnut miner moth cameraria ohridella that was the culprit.

Since there was no sign of larvae attack when I pruned the tree 3 years ago, I'm sceptical.
 
By coincidence I have spent most of the week doing half dead chestnuts. Glad to have them done as had to rig out a couple. Natural crotch & gently does it.
 
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