{"id":114,"date":"2012-04-10T20:57:51","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T01:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/?p=114"},"modified":"2018-12-30T07:58:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-30T13:58:19","slug":"tree-care-for-drought-stressed-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/?p=114","title":{"rendered":"Tree care for drought stressed trees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year’s record heat and drought<\/strong> compounded the severe impact that the 2009 drought had on trees in Austin, Texas.\u00a0 In 2009 we saw record levels of dead and declining trees due to drought.\u00a0 The heavy rains that occurred that fall and into 2010 were not enough to save many of the trees that initially survived.<\/p>\n

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severe dieback caused by drought<\/p><\/div>\n

The same thing is happening now.\u00a0 The heavy rains of this winter were not enough to save many of the trees that survived through 2011’s drought.\u00a0 Now that the late-blooming species are in leaf, what is dead is apparent, and the phones at tree care services around town are really ringing.<\/p>\n

My business is about tree care<\/strong>, not about being a “tree mortician”.\u00a0\u00a0 I have focused my 30-plus year career on maintaining trees and advising property owners on what they can do to preserve their trees.\u00a0 This means pruning, cabling, fertilizing<\/strong>, and other tree care techniques.\u00a0 I can certainly perform difficult removals, but they are not a satisfying thing for a highly experienced Certified Arborist<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So, what can one do for a drought stressed tree?\u00a0 Well, the short answer is, unfortunately not much.\u00a0 If there is substantial dieback, nothing is going to bring those dead limbs back to life.\u00a0 Now that almost every live tree in Austin is in leaf, if it doesn’t have leaves, it’s very likely dead.\u00a0 Once you know for certain that a large limb is dead, it should be removed quickly.\u00a0 This is\u00a0 for safety purposes.\u00a0 Some species shed their dead branches much more quickly than others<\/strong>.\u00a0 Pecan for instance can shed large dead limbs within a year, whereas live oak will often hang on to them for many years.\u00a0 Dead limbs really aren’t a health issue for trees in the short term (less than a year).<\/p>\n

Some tree services recommend fertilization<\/strong> for trees affected by drought.\u00a0 Although fertilizing has its place, I do not automatically recommend this.\u00a0 In fact, fertilizing can be harmful<\/strong> to a tree in a severely stressed condition.\u00a0\u00a0 Fertilization should only be used when there is a known nutrient deficiency<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is something I always assess before considering the addition of nutrients.<\/p>\n

The best approach to trees stressed by drought is to maintain proper irrigation levels and improve soil quality<\/strong>.\u00a0 Soil improvement is largely done through the addition of organic materials to existing soils, but more aggressive mechanical means (such as an air spade) are sometimes employed for extremely poor soils.\u00a0 As with fertilizing, there are right ways and wrong ways<\/strong> to improve soils.<\/p>\n

Proper irrigation<\/strong> can be achieved for trees even under most stages of city water restrictions.\u00a0 I generally recommend a thorough soaking about once a week during the hottest months.\u00a0 How much time and water that will take will depend on your specific irrigation system, water pressure and soil type.\u00a0 A heavy soak once a week is far preferable to multiple short waterings per week.<\/strong>\u00a0 If you have a thick turf like St. Augustine grass, you may not even get much water through it and to the tree roots if you are doing short waterings, so in this situation your tree could still suffer drought stress even if you were watering every other day.\u00a0 I can discuss the specifics of how to best achieve these things on your property during a consultation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Another big problem that trees stressed by drought often experience is borer insect infestation<\/strong>.\u00a0 Although some aggressive species of borers<\/strong> can attack (and kill) healthy trees, most are opportunistic, and are more likely to attack stressed trees, and some species are more susceptible<\/strong> than others.\u00a0 While chemical treatment of these insects is possible and sometimes necessary, often the infestation is only noticed after the insect has already damaged the tree and is no longer present.\u00a0 Correcting the stress factor is usually the best approach.<\/p>\n

If you have trees that are in need of tree care, you will get the best results from a tree service in which the treatment is personally provided by an owner\/operator who is an I.S.A. Certified Arborist with at least 15 years of local experience such as mine<\/em>.\u00a0 I have owned and operated Arbor Vitae Tree Care<\/strong> for 29 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year’s record heat and drought compounded the severe impact that the 2009 drought had on trees in Austin, Texas. In 2009 we saw record levels of dead and declining trees due to drought. The heavy rains that occurred that fall and into 2010 were not enough to save many of the trees that initially survived. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,4,7,6,8],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arborist","tag-austin","tag-certified","tag-tree-care","tag-tree-pruning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treecarebyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}