the trunk damage looks BAD to me!!! yet the leaves are still healthy looking. this is whats confusing me, i thought for sure its that fatal oak wilt fungus.....yet everything i read about that says the leaves quickly start to look sickly and fall off

thanks for the reply.......when you say 'not a lot can be done', does that mean the tree likely wont survive? these poor trees....first off the place we bought them from was rough with them, then they immediately experience record breaking summer heat for the area, and not enough water (mandated NO WATERING, though i still gave them some water)followed by a few freezes, and my back yard gets extremely windy for some reason so they've been whipped around like crazy. it took them a full month longer than all the other red oaks in my 'hood to start sprouting leaves.

I will hazard two guesses based on the information provided. 1. You have had a lot of equipment around your yard removing other trees. Some of it has compacted the soil around your oak. Couple that with increased sun exposure on the tree (and its root zone) heating up the tree more on our first week of summer temps and you have leaf drop. 2. The straight line winds did damage your oak. It is just taking awhile for it to show up. My pet theory is partially cracked branches are not transporting nutrients well. After storms my big Shingle oak drops branches, not during them. It sucks to lose all them trees. Hope the big guy recovers for you. EAB is just getting into my area. Sucks.

Thanks! :-) That's pretty normal for these types of trees to put leaves out in various parts of the trunk, so I wouldn't worry about that. If the browning is during the hot weather in mid summer and isn't too severe, I don't know if it's really a problem either. A severe aphid infestation is annoying and if bad enough can affect the leaves to some extent. But really the tree looks quite healthy and In my eyes and there isn't any other obvious problems. Can we have some history. How long has the tree been there? What type of soil is it? Do you provide supplemental water at all? Other than getting enough water I can't think of anything else to say but someone else may come along and chime in with another idea.