Just like people, trees are susceptible to diseases and infections. You will be able to tell when this happens because the tree will start to show signs and symptoms. Sometimes there can be multiple options for the cause that people will assume. This can make diagnosing the tree’s condition troublesome. Having the proper knowledge is extremely important, you will need to properly and accurately interpret the symptoms in order to get the actual diagnosis so you can treat your tree. Attempting to manage diseases or infections needs to be done cautiously. Similarly to human illnesses, tree diseases are complicated and the procedures to help them can also be tricky.
We here at Five Star Tree Services are going to go over some suggestions that will help you indicate if a tree is sick with a disease or infection. However, do not take these as the only determining factor for what solution to use to help manage your tree’s situation.
Most issues can be serious enough to warrant a professional for help. If you find that your tree is in serious trouble, it is imperative that you contact an arborist for aid. They will be able to come and analyze samples that will bring them to a concise conclusion of what disease or infection is troubling your tree. They can then offer solutions on what the next steps can be and implement them accordingly.
Follow these steps to identify if you tree has a disease or infection from visual evidence presented on your tree:
What Does A Healthy Tree Look Like
It is important for you to know what healthy trees look like from season to season. Each tree species has different looks to them, and knowing when there is something off about the appearance is a good indicator that something is wrong.
Observable Changes
There are numerous parts to a tree. You should be assessing each part and observing if there are any concerning changes in the development of the tree that will indicate a disease or infection. If you have more than one tree of the same kind, making comparisons between the two will help you notice if there is something going on with one.
Take Notes
If you do find something off about a tree, make sure to take accurate notes of the visual changes you observe. This can be things like colour change, texture change or abnormalities, and any other oddities you can see.
Do Your Research
If you can see that the health of your tree is declining and the issue is getting worse, you can take samples of the infected area. We do want to note that professional specialists are usually the ones to do this.
Diagnose Your Tree
There are numerous factors to consider and that might have happened between when you first noticed something was wrong and coming to the conclusion of your diagnosis and the cause. The first thing you are going to want to do once you have gathered all your information is to narrow down the possible reasons your tree developed the disease or infection. You can do this by identifying and eliminating less probable variables leading to the cause.
Some issues can be easily identified, quickly determining what disease or infection you are dealing with. For instance, the rust parasite is easily identifiable by the pustules on the leaves. But there are also trickier issues to try and identify. There can be a few potential causes, making it harder to pinpoint what one it actually is. This can include issues like dieback, it can be caused by animals stripping the bark, or phytoplasma contamination, or a parasitic root illness.
In order to treat and resolve the issue, you might need to be able to identify infectious parasites. Doing this is most likely going to be a long and arborous process. This makes gathering your initial information accurately very important. You should now be considering consulting an expert in order to properly determine the actual cause, disease, and what solution to follow through with. Consulting an expert will eliminate the need for you to take any extreme measures yourself.
How Five Star Tree Services Can Help
Figuring out exactly what is wrong with your tree can be a complicated process. Starting with a good and accurate description and analysis can help narrow the wide range of possibilities. Once you have determined that your tree is in trouble, you can call us at Five Star Tree Services to come and help. Our team will be able to perform a preliminary observation and make an educated decision about what to do to help your tree and its development for the long term. Give us a call at (416) 990-3355 for our Tree Care Services in Richmond Hill.