Declining Sequoia

[NickfromWI]

What's wrong with this little guy?

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[Underwor]

It almost looks as if the dieback currently and what you removed before is sort of in clockwise spiral up the tree. In spruce that is often a sign of herbicide damage, or at least root damage of some sort. It affects on root and there is a spiral grain in the wood. Don't know if that is the case, but it is my first impression. Could also be girdling root. I would look for a root problem first since most diseases start in one spot and spread from there.
Hope that helps.

 

[Burnham]

Nick, how well does the species generally do in that environment? It's a long way from it's natural niche.

 

[Bodean]

It's surely the wrong tree in the wrong place making it susceptible to anything.

To me it looks like redwood botrasphaeria canker.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bot...JeamygH844BI&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1425&bih=725

 

[wiley_p]

The clean air is LA?

 

[sotc]

phytophthora cinnamomi? Looks awfully wet for that species

 

[Marc-Antoine]

It isn't redwood but Sequoiadendron giganteum and it likes more dryer and colder places than the redwood (Sequoia semperviens).
It grows hight in the mountains, where the winds had already lost the main part of their rain (over the redwood land, lower in the valleys).

Its root swell looks really odd. It's probably a nursery tree grown under bad practices, like many nurseries do for town people. Easy work and quick earn money, but prone to give a root system in a very bad shape.
You can dig a little around the stump to look at the buttress roots. Not too deep, but enough to see well all the collar.
For me this tree is already lost, sick or not.
I think that the better is to replace it with a well grown and healthy tree.

 

[mdvaden]

The last reply's comment about the trunk is what caught my eye too.

I've got questions ... maybe not answers.

1. Is it where herbicide, from lawn care, could be leaching or reaching it's root system? That would be history of the site, and condition. Like if there are no weeds, herbicide use likely.

2. Any of the same species nearby with the same problem?

3. Get spider mites down there?

4. Did you remove a couple of inches of soil to look for girdling twine or roots beneath the mulch and soil surface?

...