no.. it shouldnt happen occasionally ...

is that blacktop driveway.. a recent redo????

i wonder if it was there.. when the houses were built ... how old you think the house on the left is ???

ken

btw.. a lot of very good firewood there ... ken

Blacktop has been around 'forever'; house is vintage 1920s. But now that I think of it, the house on the right just sold and in the process, the old underground oil tank was removed. By the looks of it, it may have been leaking fuel oil ... I wonder if there was a major spill as a result. I know there were two oil companies involved over time and the EPA certification was withheld from the first one. That would be even more tragic if all this was man-made.

sad to see such a nice looking oak die. You could always plant another, I am guessing this is Q. Alba. I have had oaks do this before, always ended up removing them.

Tried blowing up the photo to get a better look at leaves. No luck. Wonder what kind of tree it is. If red oak, this could be oak wilt, although that usually takes a tree rapidly, not over the course of a whole summer. also reminds me of "flagging" in elm, which BTW, the oak wilt fungus is closely related to the DED fungus.

I still think that pouring a few hundred gallons of fuel oil onto the roots could do this

Did that in fact happen? I read only conjecture above. Of course that could do it. I just didn't read where that actually took place.

What I saw last fall was our local fuel oil company show up (without a tanker truck) and start digging with a little bobcat. They piled dirt for two days, then refilled the hole and left. A week later, they returned, still no tanker truck but with a backhoe and lifted the old fuel tank out of the ground. It looked like the hull of the Titanic. I may have missed them putting the new tank in, and assumed they were converting to gas. But three weeks later, a completely new company showed up with EPA signs all over them and dug up the same place. All this is just behind the side porch of the little white house on the right and within 50' of the tree. Had the tank been leaking for a while and this was the final straw? Had they allowed the tank to run dry? Or had they thought to explore and realized they were in over their head?

That is certainly concerning. Is there any opportunity for you to talk with someone in the know about just what went on here?

I'll probably go across the street to my neighbor (green house) whose tree this is and alert him to the problem (he's pretty much an invalid and may not even know), and let him and his family seek recourse --- if any is to be had. With the white house under new ownership and being the kind of neighborhood where drama is kept to a minimum, the tree will probably be removed and that's that. It is truly sad that such a magnificent creation should be felled by human stupity --- a mini-history of environmental abuse.

Where was the old tank in reference to your pic?

see that side porch on the white house on the other side of driveway --- just behind that

Better photos are needed. And even then lab work would also help along with a professional evaluation. Could be anything from bacterial leaf scorch, to abiotic issues such as root damage or herbicides to oak wilt. Where is this? What species?

VERY hard to tell in the picture, but the lawn to the right looks suspiciously well maintained. Is it possible that Imprelis (?) is still being used by some companies? Or that the damage could still be showing up? Willows, what was the other restricted-use herbicide that you mentioned affecting oaks in Florida? One of the sulfurons IIRCs.

I actually don't think the oil residue itself would be a problem. Even if the tank removal severed a few roots, it shouldn't cause this on the whole tree. Only if you tell me the tank was the size of a UPS truck or something, and was within 20 feet of the tree. In the fast developing suburbs of the DC area, I used to see the grade shifted not far from old oaks quite frequently and they survived. Something like the soil being scooped down 5', 25 feet from the trunk. (only along one side of course, usually to build a retaining wall or whatnot) So again, something more serious has affected the health of the tree in my opinion like a disease or herbicide.

Trunk bark looks like Northern red oak. I wouldn't go cutting it down yet -- much of it could survive.

davidrt, I too wonder about Imprelis. And as a side note-a very sad side note for me, that big row of giant Norway spruce in my home town now has something like this going on, and there too, I wonder if somebody had some leftover Imprelis. Big bunch of those trees rather suddenly stone dead. And other trees nearby. If I get thataway, I'll snap some photos. Big death going on....in trees that have been there since my dad was a kid and which are surely not dying of "old age".

That's a good call, rhizo. And oaks are notorious for lightening strikes. OP-are there any streaks or strips of bark blown off, including high up in the tree? That's not always present following lightening strike but it can be. Sometimes, this bark can be thrown long distances.

Also exactly correct-some lightening strikes manifest immediately, some seem to follow some delayed reaction.

I'm reluctant to go over there and take pictures --- it's just not done ... but will try.

"it's just not done"

I think the pic you've already posted here would be of more concern to most people than a closeup of the tree canopy!

Not completely discounting the lightning theory...but my guess would be if a tree this close to houses was struck, it would have been a quite notable event for at least all of the immediately adjacent houses. I think glass panes can be broken by the noise at that range, and the electrical surge via ground can damage appliances. And at least throwing a branch or two down from the canopy or in some other way memorializing itself.

But looking at the picture it does appear the damage radiates from a single path coming down from the top of the canopy. Maybe it was a smaller strike that was a finger of a bigger one?

I've known numerous oaks to suffer what I call a superficial strike....the lighting follows a path more or less along the surface of the tree into the ground. There may be remarkably little evidence of the event until several months later.

I've also known healthy, mature oaks to survive such strikes for many long years.

If that were my beautiful tree, I'd have an ISA Certified Arborist or ISA Consulting Arborist examine the patient.

Like Rhizo, I suspect something may have initiated the problem some time ago. Notice the thinning in the outer part of the canopy over the entire tree. This tree has not been happy for a while now.

Bottom Line --- that half of the tree is dead and needs to be removed before the branches start falling. The likelihood is that the imbalance of the remainder of the tree suggests the whole tree should be removed. Am I right?

Not necessarily, just because the tree has defoliated doesn't mean it is rotting inside. I would give it until next spring and see if it comes back out, if not then have it remove and replaced.

You can't expect anyone here to answer those questions from two pictures. This really is a situation where the owners of the property need to shell out for the experts I suggested.

You don't know that half of the tree is dead. Doesn't look like it to me.

Right^. And there's not some immediate "out-of-balance" thing that happens even if/when a portion of a tree does die. In fact, in many examples, a dead tree or section of tree may for a time have exceptionally sound wood....dried on the stump as they say. Eventually-of course-all will tumble down.

I would guess you guys would already know if this was the problem, but.... did your area have Cicadas this year? Not all the leaves are brown on the tree so I figured I'd ask. I know, someone already thought of that......