Black Walnut - Bug Infestation

[lxskllr]

I've mentioned this before, but I put it to the side attributing it to a one-off of a possibly stressed tree. I was making a property inspection and saw more of the same on some young walnuts that sprouted up. I have not seen these symptoms on the well established walnuts, though I haven't climbed them to make a thorough inspection.

There's numerous bark splits with galleries visible in some of them. Canopies look ok, but there's maybe more watersprouts than I'd expect to see on an unmolested tree. The pic is of the oldest tree which is ~15yr old. The other trees with similar defects are only a few years old. The trees without visible symptoms are >25yr. An image search isn't immediately producing anything. Any idea what's in these trees?

 

[Knotorious]

@lxskllr In my far from professional opinion, it looks to me like the tree just needs to use more moisturizer. Have you scheduled a visit for it to see a dermatologist? Or here's another thought...maybe the tree is addicted to...CRACK. Get it? Get it? Maybe it needs an intervention and a trip to a TREEtox followed by a TREEhab! Aaaahhh, I slay myself!

Sorry, that was completely unhelpful.

 

[pigwot]

John,
Did you find anything about these trees?

Thousand Cankers Disease - The Arbor Day Foundation

The best way to protect your trees from pests that could do serious damage is to know what to look for. Get to know the six pests that are posing the largest problems in the U.S.

www.arborday.org

 

[lxskllr]

I haven't. After originally looking, I put it aside and kind of forgot about it. I ran across TCD when I was looking. Made me think "Hmm...", but I'm not convinced. When the weather gets a little better I'll make a better effort of looking for the smaller entry holes. I was kind of fixated on the bark splits when I was looking at them.

 

[Knotorious]

In my far from professional opinion, it looks more like a disease than a bug infestation. But I know f\/ckall about trees in this sense. It's just an intuition. Perhaps the disease exposed areas to insects.

 

[lxskllr]

Dunno. The first tree I saw it on is kind of weird. It grew up next to/on a spruce stump, and has a bunch of roots that aren't even underground. Thought it was maybe some weirdness on a stressed tree. I then saw the same defects on otherwise normal trees, and it made me reconsider and make this thread. We'll see. I'll do a better inspection later.

 

[lxskllr]

Found out what's wrong with my black walnuts. Turns out they're ashes :^D Is that stupid or what?! I saw a bunch of leaflets, and said "walnut" cause those things popup all over around here. I went to checkout my Japanese maple today, and I'm looking at the "walnut" thinking "Seed clusters? WTF?!?!" That also explains the bark breaks that kind of looked like EAB to me, *and* It explains the stray EAB I saw flying around here a couple years ago, and was wondering why, when I didn't have any ash.

Heh... At least I know the problem now. Looks like I'll be doing some removal in a couple months. Sucks about the one in front, cause I kind of like it there. Better for the ones out back, cause they're growing next to a white oak sapling. I prefer white oak, but didn't want to arbitrarily cut a good tree, so I was gonna let them battle it out to see what happened. Looks like the white oak wins :^)