Abandoning The Leader

elmguy

I have a hornbeam that is not doing so well, I trunk chopped it this year and it did grow a new leader, but only about 6” long, it did however grow two new, now long shoots lower down. The top 6” leader had stared to whither away a few days ago and now the leaves are shriveled, it doesn’t look damaged, broken etc. What should I do? I think that the tree is abandoning this leader, could removing the bottom ones force the tree to revitalize the dying leader? Also, the tree is actually a potensai growing in a garden bed.

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TreeBay

Dieback, or withdrawal of sap, sometimes happens when a wound is created that is too large for the tree to close readily. Wounds to the trunk and branches don't really heal, they just get compartmentalized by new growth.

Whenever you make a big cut, it's a good idea to be sure that you have branches on several sides of the wound so that if die-back occurs, it will usually only go back so far as the next branch.

There may not be much you can do other than re-cut the tree in late winter to establish a new leader.

Do you have a picture of this tree?

Regards,

Matt

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elmguy

Treebay,

The tree in question was collected this year, I didn't do a trunk chop to grow a new apex, I did the chop in order to collect the tree, and it was about 20 ft high. I chopped it then transplanted it; there were two branches left that had died because they couldn’t be supported. The, now stump looked dead. Then, only about a two monts ago, there were emerging shoots from the now short stub of a trunk. The two bottoms one grew first and I thought that the apex would be lost, then a new dormant bud was released and a new leader started to grow. Now the two bottom shoots are doing well but the new leader that just started a month ago is dying, or at least loosing it's leaves. Anothere thing, when the new shoots started to grow the leaves kept getting holes on them and dying, there were almost microscopic round black shinny bugs all over the thing. The same thing was happening with the top leader, the top leaders leaves were constantly being ravished from when they first started to being distorted and looked chewed. The tinny leaves didn't look good but were feeding the tree for about a month, now they’ve dyed in about two days.

TreeBay

Sounds like a bad mix of transplant stress and infestation. I have no idea if it is too late for a systemic insecticide or not. Don't toss it until spring, though - you never know.

Regards,

Matt

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