Gophers Eating Your Trees?

Gopher's eating the life out of your trees?



Gopher ate roots and trunk

 It happerns every spring, just as the snow melts away from around plants trees and shrubs, the gopher damage starts showing up. Trees are literally being eaten alive !
To learn more about gopher and mole habits click below: http://www.lsgardens.com/GardenUpdates/garden_updates2011.html#4111

Black Spot Fungus on Aspens

Foliage diseases can reduce the aesthetic value of aspen, cottonwood and poplar trees. Occasionally, a severe disease outbreak causes premature defoliation or dieback of parts of the tree.

Facts:
Fungi cause most foliage diseases on aspen, cottonwood and other poplar species.
Foliage diseases develop readily in wet, cool weather.
Foliage diseases decrease a tree's aesthetic value and can cause premature defoliation.

Severe outbreaks can affect the general health of the tree.

To reduce future disease problems, rake up and dispose of leaves and prune out branches with cankers.Timely fungicide application can prevent severe outbreaks.

If a tree loses its leaves early in the season, it may grow new ones and its health is not seriously affected. If it loses them in midsummer, however growing new leaves may prevent the tree from fully hardening off before cold weather or reduce the amount of stored food. This leads to increased danger of frost damage, reduced growth, and increased risk to other diseases or insects.

The fungus Marssonina causes the most common foliage disease on aspen. Marssonina leaf spots are dark brown flecks, often with yellow halos. On severely infected leaves, in wet weather, several spots may fuse to form large black dead patches. Spots also may develop on leaf petioles and succulent new roots.

Marssonina survives the winter on fallen leaves that were infected the previous year. With spring and warmer, wet weather, the fungus produces microscopic "seeds" or spores that are carried by the wind and infect emerging leaves. Early infections are rarely serious, but if the weather remains favorable, spores from these infections can cause widespread secondary infection. Heavy secondary infections become visible later in the growing season and cause premature leaf loss on infected trees.

Fungicides, if applied early enough can prevent foliage disease. Spraying will prevent only new infections; it will not cure leaves already infected. Trees should be sprayed with a fungicide at bud break and then two or three times during the growing season at 12 to 14 day intervals.

Fungal Diseases on Aspen Trees

Since aspen trees are a native to central Oregon, most of us have at least one in our landscape. Along with the beautiful white bark and the golden fall color, come several diseases that seem prone to affect the Aspen trees. Some of the disease problems are due to a lack of care by the homeowner. I preach over and over every fall to rake up those fallen leaves. If left on the ground you are more apt to develop Black Spot on your aspen trees.
Black Spot is a fungal disease that causes the Aspen leaf to turn black around the edges and lose leaf mid summer. It most likely will not kill the tree but can be very unsightly in the landscape. Now is a good time to treat your aspen trees, especially if you have had this fungal problem in past. You want to spray your trees with a fungicide just as the bud swells and repeat again as the leaf starts to emerge from the bud.
Another fungal disease is Septoria Leaf Spot. Symptoms are small brown or black mostly circular spots on the leaves. The treatment is the same as for black Spot.
Aspen Galls is another problem on the trees. Not a fungal disease but an insect. The tree will have lumps in the branches. This is caused by a tiny fly like insect that bores into the branch and lays it's eggs. The larvae feeds off of the branch, causing the gall. This gall won't usually kill the tree, but can cause problems, by weakening the branch. I suggest that you cut the gall off of the tree by cutting the branch just behind the gall.
Aspen trees are relatively short-lived, usually 20 to 40 years for individual trees. As they become older they will become more prone to problems such as sooty fungus and rust blight.