I'm deeply concerned that my established silver maple is dead. I have
two silver maples, a younger tree in front and the elder in back of my
house. The elder maple lost it's leaves around late August of last
year, much earlier than normal. Being from DFW and concerned for heat
stress, I watered it until the season began to change. This year I
have no growth on the elder tree but the younger tree in front is
already sprouting leaves. The company that manages my fertilization
of the tree had a look at it and stated that it wasn't dead. I saw
where he made a cut in the wood to see if it was still alive.
Considering I don't know what to look for inside the bark of an
established tree, I can't really tell what he saw. I'm not seeing
anything positive. We've had quite a bit of rainfall this month and I
do supplement during the dry times. Any suggestions?

If I was in your area I would bring out a SHIGOMETER and measure the Cambium
Electrical Resistance (CER). That way we could see the vitality of the
symplast. Your trees problem could be an accumulation of things starting
with injuries when the tree was in the nursery to improper pruning, to
improper planting, to improper fertilization and the list goes on and on. A
good article on rhizosphere is he
http://www.treedictionary.com/DICT2003/shigo/RHIZO.html

Pruning he
http://www.treedictionary.com/DICT2003/tree_pruning/

Planting he
http://home.ccil.org/~treeman/sub1.html

More on chemistry and fert. he
http://www.treedictionary.com/DICT2003/shigo/CHEM.html

Maybe more information then you want?

Sincerely,
John A. Keslick, Jr.
Arborist
http://home.ccil.org/~treeman
and www.treedictionary.com
Beware of so-called tree experts who do not understand tree biology.
Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions keep reminding us
that we are not the boss.




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I'm deeply concerned that my established silver maple is dead. I have
two silver maples, a younger tree in front and the elder in back of my
house. The elder maple lost it's leaves around late August of last
year, much earlier than normal. Being from DFW and concerned for heat
stress, I watered it until the season began to change. This year I
have no growth on the elder tree but the younger tree in front is
already sprouting leaves. The company that manages my fertilization
of the tree had a look at it and stated that it wasn't dead. I saw
where he made a cut in the wood to see if it was still alive.
Considering I don't know what to look for inside the bark of an
established tree, I can't really tell what he saw. I'm not seeing
anything positive. We've had quite a bit of rainfall this month and I
do supplement during the dry times. Any suggestions?