you are wise to avoid making boat payments to lawn care co's ... they will allow you to pay them for whatever whim you may have ... regardless of its utility ...

first.. i am leery of fall diagnosis of color change.. with no info on what happened all summer.. i am tempted to question your diagnosis.. w/o knowing what summer brought.. drought??.. storms.. late spring severe cold??? .. etc ... lets insure your base presumption is correct ...

in the mean time.. you need to start with a professional SOIL TEST ... call your county AG or extension office.. and find out how to do such .... it should cost under $15 ... and be provided by the college that ends in STATE .. presuming you are USA based ...

i like this from john wayne: "life is hard---it's even harder if your stupid"

once we rule out summer issues..

and we discover what the soil tells us..

then we can think about amending the soil ... otherwise we are simply guessing and throwing stuff around the lawn .. willy nilly .. and that usually doesnt work ...

and forget about digging small holes .. thats is not the way its done ... and why tree spikes are useless .. how do you know there will be roots where the holes are??? ..

all that said.. with a tree that could last 100 years.. i would start thinking.. that maybe you arent going to be trying to amend the soil.. yearly .. for the next hundred years.. and maybe it is time to start thinking about replacing the maple with something that is carefree ... all depending on the soil test ...

and one last thought.. do you apply and lawn care products to the grass which might be impacting the tree ...

ken

There's a good possibility your tree is planted improperly.

Are you planting in the yard of new construction? Locally, some of construction practices just make it really really tough to grow most anything. Not saying, that this might be the one cause, just that it could be contributing.

Arktrees

i also thought that there were some recent posts about iron deficiencies with same maples.. but that would still require the soil test.. so they can ID proper application amounts ...

also .. the county extension office may have a handy suggestion ... if this is a county wide issue ... but you still need the test ...

or just get rid of it .. life's too short .. and you can do a lot better than a maple .. IMHO

ken

This cultivar is very tolerant to alkaline soils so its likely not chlorotic.

It is possible that its choking itself and its nutrient defficiant.

Of course it was planted wrong...a human planted it the last twenty years, and those blasted idiots can't ever get anything right. Never trust a human to do a squirrel's job.

Funny how a presumption of chlorosis leads to a diagnosis of improper planting. From what I know, the two aren't generally associated.

The issue of nutrient deficiency and resulting chlorosis is too highly associated with pH to be separated from it.

Silver maple, while pH adaptable, is also chlorosis prone. Red maple is as well. Providing that these are the parents of Acer x freemanii, it would be plausible to consider that while adaptable, the resulting progeny may also suffer from the same maladies that affect the parent.

To be exactly precise, you would need more than a soil test to diagnose a nutrient deficiency. You would need a plant tissue test. However, a soil test will most likely give you all the info you need. high pH would be the primary indicator.

When it comes to what you can do, there are a number of different treatments. Short term treatments are usually foliar (liquid iron), long term treatments are generally granular and may include sulfur, or forms of iron sulfate and often have a micronutrient component.

Funny how a presumption of chlorosis leads to a diagnosis of improper planting. From what I know, the two aren't generally associated.

Roots will encircle/strangle and limit the uptake of nutrients.

Now that doesn't necessarily mean the girdling roots are a product of improper planting.

Another interesting fact is that the OP stated that the plant looked more chlorotic in fall. That could have been a component of drought with the record heat we had last year (even in zone 4 and 5). I guess we'd need to know if this has been a recurring observation or just last year. If the latter I'd wait to see what it does this year.

If the plant truly is chlorotic, a too-high soil pH is a very wise first stab to make. Quite likely, all needed nutrients are in adequate supply, but this too-high soil pH is "locking" some of them up, typically iron and manganese for maples.

If so, soil sulfur is a reasonable treatment. Applied quite liberally over the soil surface, it will slowly be converted to sulfuric acid, driving the pH down. This in turn will make the two metallic nutrients mentioned above more readily available to the tree. So.......first thing I'd do is check that soil pH. You can do that yourself.

+oM

If properly planted and no roots are girdling, the next most likely cause of chlorosis is the soil. But it's the tree, stupid, to borrow a phrase.

For if you do have a very alkaline soil, it cannot be feasibly altered by chemical means. This will only create novel imbalances and eventual nutirent toxicity issues.

Alkaline soils tend to be nutrient rich already, and the only effective way to free up some of these nutrients is via biological means. Rainwater is also superior, avoiding the further jacking up the pH with an alkaline water source.

If sufficient organic material exists within the soil, barring some type of pathogen, it's the wrong tree. I have alkaline soil, many who move here eventually get over the pH denial.

Mackel, maybe it's different in TX, but here, pH adjustment is feasible. It is a process that is temporary however. Buffering capacity in alk. soils will eventually drive the pH back up, because as you say, such soils typically have many docking sites for minerals such as calcium and magnesium. But the process is simple and easily repeated.

I like your mention of rain water and biological activity. Such are indispensable if one wishes to have truly healthy soil.

+oM

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, Tom. You like what I have to say, and I appreciate that, though you really don't understand what I'm saying. Maybe it's just my writing? How about this-

"In an alkaline soil, the carbonate ions that are flushed out by acidifying the soil with sulfur are now being replacec by sulfate. Sulfate is toxic to the beneficial and essential fungi, and steady applications over time will raise sulfate levels to a point which becomes toxic to the plant itself. Fairly permanently, at that.

This is the opposite of what happens in an acidic soil where sulfur is applied, as the sulfate is flushed out, leaving the harmless hydrogen ion, behind. "

So I hope that you can see that not only what you are saying is wrong, but somewhat irresponsible. Please take no offense as this is all for education and entertainment's sake...

I'm not aware of any reason why anyone would apply sulfur to an already-acidic soil. So yeah, I'm missing something here. I was speaking of treatments that I've undertaken myself, as well as those of other practitioners in my area, which did effect beneficial pH lowering for chlorosis-susceptible species. My other point is that though effective, such treatments need to be repeated after a time because the neutral clay loam soil of which I speak will go back to what it was eventually. I have never heard of a toxic situation developing in soils treated this way though, so that's all news to me. This all seems in line with the OP's initial query. It may possibly not fit your situation in TX, but I don't think the Z4 of the OP is anywhere near you.

Irresponsible? Wow.

+oM

Blueberries. Fruitcake.

I usually try to be diplomatic on web boards but you sir are a jackass.

+oM

Elemental Sulfur on Alkaline Soil-

(These are long term, not temporary effects)

1. Locks up copper
2. Slows nitrogen uptake
3. Slows moybdenum uptake
4. Reduces organic carbon
5. Reduces microbial biomass
6. Deteriorates soil enzymes
7. Kills mycorrizal fungi dead.

Poor choice of words on my part, Tom.

"Trees which have a high iron requirement or are less efficient at taking it up from soil, such as silver maple, red maple or certain oaks, often develop iron chlorosis."

- Unviversity of Colorado (re: alkaline soils)

"It is fast growing, but can suffer some from iron chlorosis like the pure Silver Maple."

-Poplar Farms (re: autumn blaze maple)

"This is one more example of an over-hyped tree with major shortcomings, particularly, the false advertising of it's adaptability".

-Mackel in DFW

Simply put, adding sulfur to an alkaline soil for an ill-adapted tree is a wasted effort. It's a temporary "solution" for what will likely amount to a permanently struggling tree.

Any chance of posting an image or two of the chlorosis?

If not, how about a picture of the tree overall, with a good clear shot at the base where the tree enters the ground.

Just trying to play Sherlock Holmes myself....

What other trees do you have and are they suffering from similar symptoms?

My thinking is if you have ten other species on the lot which are more touchy to chlorosis then the red maple probably has something else. If every other tree could care less about iron and red maple is the most touchy...

FOOD FIIIIGHT!!!

;)

This is a simple question.

It deserves a simple answer.

So let us stipulate...you have a chlorotic plant. What are the most likely causes and how can you address the issue. Ideally, the answer of how to address the issue is something the average person can do by using the products available at a local garden center or hardware store. Meaning, we're trying to limit the use of outsourcing.

I know we're not afraid of saying outrageous things that have no basis in reality, cyberspace or otherwise. So why are we so suddenly shy about trying to proffer advice that is about a question that is actually quite common? Or is the answer to call the tree service company and go for the high dollar micro injects?

Because the OP didn't provide additional info so whats the point of continuing to speculate?

I see several questions that have gone unanswered. The only response I saw was "food fight". At least they have a sense of humor. In that case it would have been a "tree fight".

I'm searching for answers or insight into a possible? chlorosis problem of my own, so allow me to intrude on this thread: I've planted (actually replaced) a damaged Red Sunset or October Glory maple. Of the three that I have in my front yard, the replacement-now 7 years old-never gets the fall colors the other two get. Leaves turn a brownish yellow and then just fall off. The tree looks other wise quite healthy and seems to thrive and grow just fine. So my question: Can chlorosis only appear in the fall? Thus effecting fall color change? The tree is zone 8 NW WA State.

Argre, chlorosis can become worse over the course of the growing season. One way in which this can happen is if A) there is plentiful rainfall early in the summer, such that no supplemental watering is needed, and B) Later-season dryness forces one to get the hose out, and finally C) The water used for irrigation is of a high pH, like where I live. Many years ago, before I understood some aspects of chlorosis, I got into the Wave petunias and surfinias and other versions of the very vigorous petunias that have come into the market. Because it was a dry summer, I had to water these locations frequently, with our pH 8.7 water! It seemed, and it really was the case, that the more these plants were watered, the worse they got. Right around then, I made the discovery that these plants had a definite need for acidic conditions. The subsequent use of acid-inducing fertilizers for such plantings has completely alleviated this problem.

So there's an example of chlorosis getting worse as the season drags on. Of course, I have no idea whether any of this applies to your red maple.

+oM

Thanks wisconsitom--lots o' rain early in summer followed by two blessed months of relatively dry weather, here in the PNW. We will be trying more water for this one in July and August along with some food stakes. We'll see. Thanks again for your response.