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Leaf Scorch on Sugar Maples

16 years ago

I have two sugar maples that appear to have leaf scorch. Some leaves are browned and curled on the edges. The other leaves are blotted with yellowing and the area along the veins being greener. I decided it probably was leaf scorch since I could only find three other problems that exhibited similar symptons, leaf hoppers which I have had before and know the symptons, and Pierce's disease which the leaf hopper can be the vector, but my grapes are fine; and anthracnose which from the literature seem to manifest itself a little different.

This is the first year of this problem. The maples have been planted for six years and I have watered them during drought times. They are about 15 inches around at chest height. Drought has been taking its toll on numerous trees and shrubs as exhibited by the amount of borer damage that has been showing up throughout our region. These sugar maples are out of their natural range, but have been grown fairly widely throughout our area. This may be an example of what is to come as we get warmer and have less and less rain.

Has anyone experienced problems with sugar maples similar to what I have described. If so, what did you do and what was the outcome.

I would appreciate any feed back on how to deal with this problem. Obviously, I will put the soaker hose on the trees and give them a good watering which should not hurt them even if I have mis-diagnosed the problem.

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Comment (1)

quirkyquercus
16 years ago
I have one variety of sugar maple supposedly from local (N.e.Georgia) provenance and it leafed out somewhat early before the easter freezes. After that the leaves appeared to be tattered and burned like leaf scorch... I have noticed this on others in the area too.
I have 3 other sugar maples in my yard, all of which are from a northern provenance I presume. They hadn't leafed out until a couple of weeks after easter. Thus they were not effected by the freeze and their leaves are in perfect condition.

Maybe the freeze had something to do with it? Some trees that were leafing out during the time of freeze are no worse for the wear and totally recovered but the one that is still struggling to recover is a ginkgo which has stunted leaves and looks horrible.

I have what looks like leaf scorch on a serviceberry too.
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