What is the real cause of your desease?

[kcpoole]

Hey Pauls thanks Buddy
No Incredulous looks from me

I notice you pots sit on wire mesh. Would that not allow enough circulation to stop them staying wet?

I will lift up all my flat bottomed pots tomorrow, as you and Tom suggest

Ken

[Bretts]

Paul I do agree that over watering can be a big issue in certain substrates. This weakens the tree and allows the disease or bug an open window.

I believe you would know as you grow them in much the same climate as me that the hornbeam is a tough tree but it's roots are it's weakest point. They hate to dry out and also do not like wet feet. The comfort zone for these guys is slimmer than any other tree I know. As they are the tree I learnt to water with I had to learn correct watering pretty quick. I have only killed one. It went into dormancy weak in my second year I nursed it through winter but lost it as it leafed out come spring

As I stated I never used chemicals I was scared to use fertiliser I liked the KISS principle so I liked the idea that if my trees where healthy they will resists pests and diseases. I got the occasional scale that was farmed by the ants. I deterd the ants and picked off the scale.
I did have one large issue a few years ago. The ants infested my large mop top in the garden with cottony cushion scale (Icerya purchasi). A full sized tree. The robina is a very lush dense tree and it was infested with them.
It took me a while to work out what they where
See here
http://bonsaivaultforum.freeforums.org/ ... -t166.html
(note to Tom) I will have to get back and finish this thread

As stated in this thread I cut the tree back hard in winter and blasted it with a hose then my first pesticide ever was a can of white oil in the crevices of the bark that concerned me. That white oil can is still sitting there unused. The next summer I was expecting big trouble But apart from the occasional infestation in ground grown trees (I had them growing under my bonsai bench!) that I picked off I recall maybe one tree in a pot that had a couple on it. Again just picked off and By the next year I had no more.

This brings me to my first question of your statement

"99% of all diseases are caused by over watering"

How do you account for diseases that attack established landscape trees? There are many diseases attacking healthy forests around the world.

Any way the point I want to make is I get what an over waterd tree is and I have to continue to disagree that is all that is happening with these tridents.
It is an interesting fact though that if you can find a climate or sinario that the tree can handle but the bug can't then you will defeat the bug. Some times this can be done with environment some times chemicals work better. Brent Waltson has an interesting story about a disease that infected his cuttings dome. He tried every known possible chemical cure and nothing worked He had the chemical reps out there looking for an answer it went on for years. Then it clicked. The cuttings could survive in a hotter climate than the disease he upped the temperature to the limit the cuttings could take and that was the end of the disease.

From Various diagnosis and advice I started to dry these trees out more and again on advice I increased the water. And again went back the other way. The one thing I have found that seems to deter this ,whatever it is, is Sun. I have a new trident Forrest and some of the trees in it where badly affected I moved it out in the sun next to my other Forrest a couple of weeks ago and it has improved alot since then. The funny thing is I have been giving this forrest more water than it needs it barely come close to drying out. Yet others in more shade with dryer soil have not improved.

After reading your post I went and took some pictures of the issue I am facing at the moment. To the faint hearted look away these pictures may distress

It is not only trident affected these are two collected hawthorns from this year. The one on the left should look like the one on the right. Obviously because there is less foliage the tree on the right will need more water It is getting close to being watered every day. The sick one is maybe watered once to twice a week. They reside about 3 foot apart from each other in the shade house at the moment. The point is My watering technique is the same for both and they are in the same mix.

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This tree continues to try to get some leaves out but something is giving it a very hard time

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It is starting to shoot from very low on the trunk this is it's best effort yet to get out normal leaves

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This is what the leaf should look like it is from the hawthorn 3 foot away pictured above.

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More pictures to come

[Bretts]

Here is what survived of my winter cuttings.
This is a pure grit mix that dried out more than I liked. In the foreground middle is a trident cutting. The trident stump it came from is suffering from this leaf curl

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Now it seems so is the cutting

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This is a leaf from the effected trident stump. I think you will agree it looks different to the leaves you showed.
I did warn the faint hearted to look away

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And another

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An oak.

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Hard to see from a distance but all the leaves are distorted to some degree

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Now back to the issue of if this is from over watering why are established landscape trees affected.
I noticed last year that the robina that had the ants farming the scale was affected by this. I cut it back hard again and it seems better than last year but it can still be found on some leaves. Don Burke Reckoned it was a bug when I called him on his radio station.

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I also noticed this year as it was leafing out that the neighbours Trident that was growing over my bonsai bench was showing slight signs of it. As it had been causing issues with the fence and had been discussed before I organised and chopped the tree down the day I realised it was affected

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I thought the shade from that tree was good for my micro climate but I have found my bench space much better use with the tree gone.

[Bretts]

I hope you can understand why I and others believe this is more than an issue of incorrect watering technique

[63pmp]

Brett

Firstly I'm only talking about maples, specifically tridents. Secondly you are right, you don't appear to have an over-watering problem, if you look at my pictures earlier in this thread the over-watered leaves of tridents will show discoloration starting from the tips, moving back towards the stem, and will develop black dots, it is distinctive. I have some more photos of trident leaf problems, I'll post them up later after I resize them as they are 10megapixels big.

I have had problems like this a long time ago when I lived in Sydney, I don't get it now I am in Mudgee. I now use spring water to water my trees. What water are you using, is it town water / bore water or rain? Off the top of my head (you probably already have), have you checked for chlorine, fluorine toxicity? as I think they can cause similar problems in leaves such as to yours. How much direct sun do they get, and what time of the day? Also spraying the leaves with salts of chlorine can cause something like the symptoms you're getting.

Another option is Broad mites, these are invisible to the naked eye and feed on the lower side of the leaf, soft leaves become bronze in colour, leaf edges curl in and the leaves remain narrow. The leaves may become brittle, puckered and curled. Growth is stunted and attacked buds often fall. Spray with wettable sulfur, sulfur dust also kills these mites, do not use in very hot weather, remove and destroy the newest tiny shoots continually over a 3 week period. You may be able to see them with a 10x geology hand lens.

Paul

[63pmp]

I remembered when I had a similar problem regarding the black tips. I had a similar problem with liquidamber, the ends of young leaves would burn off and become brittle. I thought it was because they were placed in front of a white wall. I eventually got rid of the liquidamber and never had the problem again. We also had a pool, and I notice you do as well, however the pool was gone when I started growing trident maples.

My first guess at you problem is Broadmite, the narrow oak leaves is a good indicator. My other guess would be Chlorine toxicity. The pool will degas chlorine which is heavier than air, it will pool in various places about your yard, the leaves will absorb the chlorine gas.

The horrific burnt leaf I would say was proper sun scorching. Pics to follow

Paul