Can a tree recover from being sprayed?

The Woodcock

I have two nice elm trees at the front entrance to my place, both over 10 metres tall. Last year someone was spraying the road margin nearby and, without being asked, sprayed outside the entrance. I presume it was Roundup or some other herbicide. They only caught a few leaves on the lower branches but they soon began to wither. Now the two trees have not come into leaf this year and the bark is starting to crack. Are the trees dead and gone or is there a chance they will recover next year or beyond?

greasepalm

Thinking big trees would need more coverage of spray to kill them and can you stick up a photo of trees.

magicbastarder

elm trees are also susceptible to the beetle which spreads dutch elm disease once they go above a certain height. i suspect it's either this or the herbicide. or both, possibly.

The Woodcock

There are several other trees close to the affected trees - elm, ash, and whitethorrn - which are perfectly fine. I saw the guy who did the spraying and he just gave a squirt of spray on these two particular trees. The small branches are dry and brittle.

greasepalm

Might have been an issue before and not noticed.

Might need a tree surgeon to confirm its gone.

How do I know if my tree has Dutch elm disease?
Symptoms and Signs

Dutch elm disease is a vascular wilt disease. The earliest external symptoms of infection are often yellowing and wilting (flagging) of leaves on individual branches (Figure 3). These leaves often turn brown and curl up as the branches die, and eventually the leaves may drop off.

magicbastarder

try the usual tests of scraping bark with your fingers to see if there's green underneath, or snapping branches to see if there's a dry snap or any elasticity in them.

elm should have come into leaf by now - and set seed too - so i wouldn't hold out much hope for yours (i've collected elm seed and i think some has already germinated)

The Continental Op

I spray around the base of trees regularly with glyphosate (roundup) and haven't killed a tree yet.

I felled masses of Elm trees back in the late 70's with DED if you can get a picture up I can probably spot if it was DED (Dutch Elm Disease).

Often if you leave the dead trees for a while you will see the signs of the Elm beetle under the bark. However you don't need the beetle as most Elms are hedgerow trees that spread by suckers and the roots also transfer the disease.

See figure 27 - oh wait

The Woodcock

Thanks for the feedback. I've attached a few photos.
The first show the trees which are clearly not in leaf with healthy ash and whitethorn visible beside them.
The second is a close up of the bark of one of the trees which is dry and cracking.
The third shows the trees from another angle. You can see there's a whole row of young healthy elm trees to the left, all about 8-10 feet high.

Dempo1

The Woodcock wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback. I've attached a few photos.
The first show the trees which are clearly not in leaf with healthy ash and whitethorn visible beside them.
The second is a close up of the bark of one of the trees which is dry and cracking.
The third shows the trees from another angle. You can see there's a whole row of young healthy elm trees to the left, all about 8-10 feet high.

I really don't think a light spraying of roundup or something similar woukd cause that type of damage to a mature tree, my guess is Dutch elm disease /Beetle infestation etc.

It's a real shame, I was plagued with Ash Die Back. I'm unsure if your tree's can be treated, hopefully someone with more experience might offer advice but my fear is when the bark deterioration starts it's not good as tree looses its protective coat as such.

Yes that looks fecked unfortunately. Definitely not by the spraying, just no way. It looks like DED is most likely.

A shame because that looks a reasonably mature specimen, 30 years or more. Probably survived by distance from nearest infected elms.

The other small elms look like suckers alright, that is trees/shoots growing from the roots of the big tree. These will inevitably grow to a max girth of around 50 cm before succumbing.

The fact that it is suckering indicates that it is not Wych Elm, Ulmus glabra, our natiive elm. Probably English Elm, U procera. These were stupendous hedgerow giants in their day. Lots of English landscape paintings show these, probably literally none left now.

The Continental Op

From the picture of the bark and from the age of the tree I'd be fairly confident that was DED.

Its ages since I was involved with DED but iirc the regrowth you get in hedgerows grows for up to 15 years before it becomes susceptible to DED.

If you saw nice and cleanly through a smaller branch you should see a brown ring in the final growth ring of the wood (sometimes you need to wet the cut or shave around the edge to see the complete brown ring). Even the larger twigs should have the brown ring.

magicbastarder

FWIW elm is prized by turners and other woodworkers. where in the country are you?

The Woodcock

magicbastarder wrote: »

FWIW elm is prized by turners and other woodworkers. where in the country are you?

I am in East Cork. Any interested woodworkers can get in touch via private message.
I would be loathe to cut the trees down but if they are beyond recovery there's no point in leaving them there.

magicbastarder

you could also lead them dead standing if they don't pose a danger; dead standing wood is a valuable ecosystem.

just don't cut them up for firewood...

there's a irish woodturners guild chapter in cork, if you did want to contact them. you can find a contact number on the map on this page: www.iwg.ie

The Continental Op

There's no hope there thats for sure, but keep an eye out you'll probably seen some new suckers coming up somewhere nearby.

Elm could never be considered a woodland tree. Not in the sense of an oak or conifer wood. Elm has always been a hedgerow tree grown up from root suckers.

The problem as I've mentioned is that once the "new" tree's hit a certain age they succumb to DED.

magicbastarder

The Continental Op wrote: »

Elm could never be considered a woodland tree.

i had understood that the climax woodland of ireland had been elm/hazel at least once in our history, the recent DED infection is not the first time elm has suffered a big dieback IIRC.

The Continental Op

magicbastarder wrote: »

i had understood that the climax woodland of ireland had been elm/hazel at least once in our history, the recent DED infection is not the first time elm has suffered a big dieback IIRC.

Must have taken down hundreds of elms back in the late 70's company I worked for would have taken down thousands. All were either planted amenity trees or growing in hedgerows. Never seen more than the odd elm in a woodland and even they it would have been as part of an old hedge row.

magicbastarder

this is from rackham's 'woodlands' - as mentioned, elm-hazel shown as the dominant woodland in ireland at one point.
if i understand correctly, the atlantic period would have ended several thousand years ago.

Wych Elm would be a high forest tree. It is a shade tolerator, so could dominate. Now where it was once the dominant it is still an understorey species, resprouting from the base.

There was an Elm decline about 5000 years ago alright, possibly some similar disease, as it was so abrupt, specific, and not obviously correlated to any climatic factors.

I know of a few woodlands in County Galway that were elmwoods. On fairly good soils. Still quite a few massive standing dead boles, with sprouting shoots. I presume they died early 80s at the latest, remarkable structural integrity.

magicbastarder

The native woodland trust were recently asking people to send them elm seeds from trees above a certain size, in the hope they might have some resistance to DED. It's at or near the end of the period where the seeds can be collected though.

biddyearley

Sounds like Dutch Elm disease. As was pointed out once trees reach a certain height/size they become infected and begin to die.