Chlorosis In Trees & How to Combat It

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Eight, sixteen thirteen ten euyb A and ask the experts
brought to you by hams Arborcare Online Amsarborcare dot com.
That's h A m ms Arborcare dot com. Another great website.
You even checked it out. Game of Trees dot com.
That's Game of Trees dot com. We have Game of Trees.
If you're on the YouTube and the internets, make sure

(00:30):
you subscribe and like and follow the channel always some
cool videos going up. Else you can follow everyone at
hamsarborcaret at their Instagram channel as well. Speak of everyone
at hams Arborcare. Our good buddy Kevin hammester arborist at Hamsarborcare,
joins us this morning. Kevin, how you been.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Doing really well? Sean? And you know, I'm starting to
get this. Every once in a while, a new client,
you know, calls it and I'm talking with them. Just
this happened just yesterday. Do you run a YouTube channel
because you look familiar. Yes, So that's beginning to happen
nice as we're approaching sixty thousand followers or subscribers.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
That is, that's amazing. And what's funny about YouTube is
I was resistant to it and I think it probably
one of It's probably one of those things that comes
with age. You're like, I'm not gonna I don't know.
And I watch YouTube almost as much as I watch
just regular television now, which is I don't think is
unique my son. I don't think if you were to

(01:31):
ask him, like, what were the broad what are broadcast
television stations, he would have no idea what they are
with like fifteen or three, he would have no clue.
Ask him who his favorite YouTuber is, he knows right away.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
So yeah, yeah, there's several, you know, genres that are
putting out you know, feature lengths programming, and we do
one every week. We've been a feature lengths release on
five o'clock in the morning on Sunday every week for
over three years straight.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
And you got sixty nearly sixty thousand subscribers, which again,
it's it's quality and that's what people people are looking for.
That's one of the cool things about about following you
on your YouTube channel and subscribing to it is you
get really good information and it's an it's such a
fascinating field as well, and an important one. And Kevin,
this week, we're going to start off just talking a

(02:23):
little bit about legacy trees, and this is something you've
been doing at Ham's Arborcare for a couple of years. Now,
let's talk real quick about the background, and then of
course talk about some of the great benefits of the
legacy tree program and what you're able to do at
Ham's Arborcare.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, you know, we have always planted trees. And then
a friend of mine and colleague years in the Wisconsin
Arbus Association, Ron Ziemer, began a nursery when he retired
from the Mid State Technical College up in Wisconsin rap

(03:00):
He ran the arbist program up there for years, and
before that he was the city Milwaukee forester. So if
you know anything about municipal trees, you know, between improper
planting and vandalism and whatever, it's it's Rinson repeat. You know,
you're putting in trees all the time. And a lot
of it was due to to, you know, poor nursery

(03:23):
practices and root structure that is formed in the nursery
and then does not correct when it gets put in
the landscape. And so you've got these root bundles that
are circling and just creating a lot of issues. And
then there was the depth of planting issue that occurred

(03:43):
at the time of planting, and so he developed the
nursery that grows the nursery stock in crates flat crates
because the ninety of roots from a mature tree are
in the top eighteen inches of soil. All right, Now,

(04:03):
that seems counterintuitive because you've seen all the tree underground
looks the same as the tree of boat. No, it doesn't.
It's like a wineglass on a dinner plate. It's why
the dinner plate is the root zone all flat, and
the tree is above it, and it's the width and
slight depths of the sinker roots. But you know, four

(04:26):
feet is about as deep as they go. And if
you think about it, you know most of the life
is in that top eighteen inches of soil. If you
dig down the top soil. In many new neighborhoods, the
top soil is only four inches deep because that's all
the more they put down after they scraped it completely
clean prior to construction. But even an older landscape, you know,

(04:52):
you might have eighteen inches of richer soil and then
it turns into sand or clay or whatever the subsoil is,
and it's not as nutrient. There's no oxygen down there,
and roots need oxygen. You know, people always think trees
need carbon dioxide. They breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe
out oxygen. Well, the roots need oxygen. And so soil

(05:15):
good soil structure actually has fifty percent poor space. And
that poor space is where the roots grow into and
where they get their air and they grow laterally across
that substrate. And so shouldn't the trees start with that

(05:36):
kind of root structure, right, That's how it does it
in the forest. And so our about eight inch deep
crates contain this this mat of roots that are ready
to grow outward. And so when we put it in
the ground, it establishes very quickly and grows outside of

(05:56):
that zone. And and we recommend people watering. We recommend
the water with maybe a circular sprinkler that will water
a large area around the tree. So we've got like
crop circles of green grass. Yeah, and we put in
a you know, about a three three to four foot

(06:19):
maltering around the tree. Uh. And that mault is important
to to you know, retain moisture close to the tree
as well.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
But yeah, and Kevin, the other thing, and we talk
about just the benefit from from the beginning as far
as how how the legacy trees are are are planted
and what goes into them. There's also when you work
with Hams Arborcare, there's also a warranty that comes with
it and and continuing care that's part of the program

(06:50):
as well, isn't there.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, you know there there's one year warranty that will
be automatic, but we we really encourage we put it
as a sale item, a five year warranty and that
is something that nobody has. That's a replacement warranty. And
then with that we stop out once a year and
do training pruning on it. And some of the larger

(07:14):
trees like the maples and maybe a honey locust or
hackberry elm, would need quite a bit of training pruning
and if you just let them go for five years,
you're going to have issues. And so for the first
five years we're managing that growth and getting it to
have a central leader and scaffolding branches appropriately spaced. And

(07:40):
I just looked at five maples in a row on
a property and they were all there were five different maples.
Actually they had a good diversity, but they were all
having issues structurally because they were and they were only
about maybe six inches in diameter, so they weren't big,

(08:02):
and so everything's very correctable, and we can we can
train prune those. That's another service we're really pushing as
our training pruning. And every couple of years usually have
your young tree, you know, after that five years, then
in seven years we would out of notice, hey we
should get back in there and do a couple of

(08:22):
cuts and kind of keep it going in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
I feel like you should put your grandkids in. Great
grandkids will thank you. That's really yeah, that's really what
we're what we're talking about here, and it's pretty amazing.
And again it's a great day. I've been thinking about
adding a tree to your yard. With a great day
to start that conversation with Kevin and the team and
Ham's Arborcare. Maybe you're looking at your yard or maybe
you're driving through the neighborhood and noticing some leaves turning

(08:47):
yellow in your thing, and we're not we're nowhere near fault.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Tree.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Leaves should be nice and vibrant green. Unfortunately, some trees,
some trees have issues. This time here, Kevin, let's talk
about some of those problems and why oaks and some
other some other types of trees out there.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, white oaks in particular, we have chlorosis issue. We
have a lot of high pH you know, alkalinity in
our soils around the Madison area and north you know,
Columbia County has a lot of it, and you'll see
white oaks this time of year that are kind of yellow.
Another another species is pinoaks, will we'll have a chlorosis issue.

(09:26):
Red maples and river birches are all prone to chlorosis.
And if your tree looks a little yellow. We just
did some treatments on a smaller river birch that was
just banana yellow and we did a folier application of
of chylated iron water soluble iron supplement and we sprayed

(09:47):
it right on the leaves that'll that'll get drawn in.
And then we also did a biochart with iron and
manganese around the root zone and we'll probably pop that green.
And and then for the oaks and larger trees, we
have a chlorosis bundle we call it where we have
four different applications that we kind of put all in

(10:09):
a bundle. We found it was hard to sell the
kitchen sink if you did it individually on the steeple,
say well, what's the most important one? If I just
do one? And so what we did is make the
clorosis bundle, because really, when you have a chlorotic tree,
what you want is a green tree, yes, and if
it takes roughly four things to really make that a

(10:31):
solid guarantee, then you should do those fours. And so
we made it a single treatment and it's once every
three years that we can do it, and most of
the treatments are a three year application. The biochart could
be done annually, but we just kind of wrap it

(10:51):
into that chlorosis bundle and it's going to be it's
going to be a good effect, and we find we
get very good results with that bundle.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
If your trees looking looking yellow and you're wondering what's
going on again, it's a great day to have Kevin
come out and take a look. You may need to
get that get that bundle in. Of course, Kevin would
love to talk to you about all the great benefits
of Hamsarbacaarrent working with Kevin. Speaking of sprays, you know
a lot of times I know in the world of
we're talking about you know, looking generationally when it comes

(11:21):
to planting trees, also seasonally when it comes to treecare,
and people may not be thinking about next year, but
folks should be when it comes to fungicidal sprays and
other things. Now is the time to be starting that conversation,
isn't it, Kevin, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Because now is the time that susceptible crab apples will
start dropping their leaves all over your lawn. And so
if you're mowing your own lawn, you're noticing these leaves
are dropping. And we've had a lot of moisture this spring,
and so we're going to subsequently see a lot of
you know, leaves dropping on on crab apples. And the

(11:56):
solution isn't now. The solution is in the spring, you
have to prevent it. And so we've got fungicidal sprays.
You know, three applications is ideal. We kind of properly
time those both in duration and with weather events. We
may stretch that duration out a little bit if we're

(12:18):
a little drier, we may speed it up a little
bit if it's a little wetter, and we try to
get those early onset cultures of fungus to grow because
they'll grow in the leaf droplets or the water droplets,
and that's why you get black spot fuggets or black
tar spot. It's a circle. Well, that was a water

(12:41):
droplet where the fungus grew and attached to the leaf.
And so we can mitigate those early onsets of that
disease and it dries out towards July and it's all good,
and you have a much better leaf retention. It's not
one hundred percent, nothing's one hundred percent, but we get
much better leaf retention and needle retention on spruce trees.

(13:04):
I I blue spruce in particular.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
I love you know. I think I've brought this up
a number of times by today. I learned. I love
learning new stuff from you, Kevin. I had no idea.
That's why those those dark spots where the black spots
were that way, is because of the because of the
water droplets. That is h Yeah, fascinating stuff. And again
it's a great day, you know even if you just
you know, you've got that tree that you love and

(13:28):
you want to make sure that it lasts. If you
haven't had it inspected recently, definitely want to have it
looked at. If you have some questions, concerns, yellowing leaves.
You're seeing those spots. You've had some issues with your
crab apples and other trees losing their leaves. Definitely make
sure you're giving Kevin and the team at Hams Arborcare
a call. Get on the schedule, make an appointment today
telp for number eight six six five nine six five

(13:48):
three nine six. That's eight six six five nine six
five three nine six. All that information available at Ham'sarborcare
dot com. That's h A m Msarborcare dot com. Kevin.
It's always informative and great chatting with you, my friend.
You enjoyed this great Dan. We'll do it all again soon.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Take care, Sean, thank you, you do the same.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
News comes your way next here on thirteen ten w