If your crab apple, palm, or pine tree shows signs of disease, you may wonder if the tree needs a good pruning to get rid of the infection. You may want to wait until you prune your tree. Some trees require special considerations before you do anything to them. The information below can give you a better understanding about your tree's plight and whether or not trimming is the best option for it.
What Do You Need to Know About Your Diseased Tree?
Although most trees grow to extensive heights without any problems, disease, fungi, and insects can cause problems for some species of trees. Some of the trees affected by disease the most are sycamores, pines, palms, and crab apples. If you have these types of plants on your property, they could be affected by different of diseases, including apple scab, cedar-apple rust, lethal yellowing, and powdery mildew.
Not all diseased trees exhibit the same symptoms. Some trees may only experience changes in their leaves, while other trees may become diseased throughout. Sometimes, diseased lesions can develop along the base of a tree and later spread to the trunk and branches. The lesions or infection can cause the leaves, fruits, and flowers of a tree to wither or drop to the ground prematurely.
If a diseased tree goes untreated, it could stop producing fruit or flowering altogether. For instance, powdery mildew is a fungal infection that affects almost all types of trees. The disease can stunt the growth of trees or keep them from reaching their maximum potential. If your tree is a young fruit tree, it may not produce fruit in the future.
Unless you know exactly what you're dealing with in your diseased tree, it's best to hire a tree service company to help you.
What's Next for You?
Many tree service providers have arborists (certified tree specialists) on staff to diagnose diseased trees. An arborist can inspect your ailing tree and determine why it's diseased in the first place. If your tree became diseased because of pests or fungi, an arborist may be able to apply medications to the tree before they remove the diseased branches.
If your tree succumbed to blight, cedar rust, or another prolific disease or infection, an arborist may have a contractor trim or prune the diseased portions from the tree. Pruning may occur right away, or it may happen sometime in the immediate future. You can only prune some trees during certain times of the year or else you risk killing them. A tree contractor may go into greater detail about this subject during the visit.
If your tree's plight is too severe or won't change in the future, a contractor or an arborist may suggest you remove it completely from your property. Tree trunks can split, crack, or break if they become too diseased. If the tree is too weak to handle trimming or treatment, it's probably a good idea to remove it.
A contractor may also remove your tree if it presents a danger to other plants on your property. Some diseases have the potential to spread rapidly during different times of the year. If one or more of your other trees become infected by fungi, mildew, or pests, they may potentially stop flourishing as well.
After a tree specialist removes the tree from your yard, you may want to plant another tree in its place. However, be sure to have a tree contractor come out to your property and assess the soil first. You want to ensure that the soil is healthy enough to withstand another tree.
If your tree shows signs of blight, apple scab, or another disease, contact a tree service company for advice on how to handle the problem right away.
To learn more about when tree trimming or tree removal is necessary, contact a company that offers tree services.
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