This will be a good test to see if Oaks can go dormant early. Dozens of Oaks around here are turning yellow to brown overnight. If mine doesn't come back in the spring I'll know it's dead and will have to get rid of it.

Hello and welcome aboard. Sometimes the Gallery section of the tree forum is less traveled so I will hazard my guess until the oak experts come along. I dunno why GW has to divide up the forums soooo much and hide posts. First, I assume Pin Oaks do well in your area. In most of St Louis they do great but there are patches where the soil is too alkaline or something and many there have yellow leaves and some defoliation. I would not want to fight nature for a hundred years like some of them folks are. The tree with the bare leaves in the first picture worries me. Rough winter after transplant stress maybe? My general advice in May is to give it a month to see if the tree rebuds. If not replace in the fall during prime planting season. The last picture to me looks to have a red tinge. Is it that or the small brown spots that have your attention? I don't know what part of the country you are in but we have had an odd week. 30's one night, 90's the next two days. I was amazed I did not see some foliage damage while I was mowing but sometimes it seems to take a few days. How has your weather been? Far as what to do to help them? Probably not much. Every few days stick a finger six inches or so into the soil and check on the moisture level down by the roots then do the right thing. Trees in general like deep watering while shallow rooted lawns like a bit at a time frequently. Good luck.

I've been dealing with Oak Wilt on a section of woods for a few years now. I'm certainly no expert, but I'll share what I know of it. The disease can spread either overland via sap-feeding beetles or underground by root grafts. Its pretty tough to do much about root graft disease spread in a dense stand of Oaks. To make matters worse (for me) is that underground spread is more common on light textured soils, which is what I've got, and less so on heavy soils. I believe my trees are being infected by underground spread, but a 40'-wide cleared strip (maintained by electrical utility for lines to fire tower) seems to be keeping the wilt from spreading to the other (larger) section of woods. While I'm grateful for this, I believe it may have been the utility's activity in the first place that brought it on. In regards to overland spread, the disease is spread when beetles feed on diseased trees and then feed on healthy trees that have a fresh wound. Trees are much more susceptible in spring and fall, so you should not do any pruning during these times. In fact, I'd say take every precaution against wounds you can. While root graft intervention is probably not feasible for the average person, you do have control over wound prevention. Where I'm at, the key time frame for greatest threat of spread is roughly from April 1 - July 15. The threat drops after July 15, and becomes minimal after October 1. My approach is to not do any mechanical activity in woods from April through September. Bob

It's not Oak Wilt which would neither originate from a spruce (spruce is an incompatible host) or spread crown to crown (it's a systemic fungus). Best guess from what I can see is either mechanical damage caused by the oak leaves being blown back and forth against the scratchy spruce twigs or sun scorch when previously shaded leaves were exposed to full sun as the spruce continued to die. Leave it be this year, remove the dead spruce, and see if this issue recurs next year.