I've got a young red oak that's weeping from cracks in its bark again this year. Is it normal for trees to do this as their bark transforms from smooth to, uhmmm, textured? I just got finished applying tree trunk goop to the area as I did for the tree last year. Same general area. No signs of borer holes unless they're really small.

~Dave

That does appear to be a bit excessive... is that the side facing the sun or shade?

After treating with goop past year, how did the area fare?

_________________
Shepherd of the Trees
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields we know so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

This is the shaded side of the tree. Last year I applied the tree trunk goop during a prolonged dry period so the stuff stayed on for perhaps a month. Once it showed signs of washing off the trunk things seemed better, but I have to admit that I didn't really track it as well as I should have. Now that I'm starting to take photos of things like this that catch my attention, I can better see how things progress.

The application just put on has already washed off with the light rains we've had. Looking at it again this morning, I still didn't see anything that looked like borer holes and I've never seen any other critters on the trunk. This is a tree that came with the house and it was planted too close to the house. As a result the previous owners did some pruning. All of the cuts look to have healed properly and there' healthy growth going on. Not sure what this is pointing to..

~Dave

Keep an eye on it this week. No rain predicted for 5-6 days. See what it looks like in 3-4 days.

_________________
Shepherd of the Trees
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields we know so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

I re-applied goop last night. This morning there is a singluar spot at the top of the area where sap, or whatever, is keeping the goop moist. Looks like perhaps there's only one point of leakage and the rest is where the stuff has oozed through existing cracks in the bark. I'll keep an eye on it.

~Dave

Well, here's an update. Things are not getting any better. The image below shows (or is supposed to at any rate) that the area of "weeping" is now sunken in quite a bit. It still feels solid, but there's definintely something eating away at the interior of this area. I had tree trunk goop on it until this past week. I wanted to see how it was doing and a few days ago I noticed how it's sunken in.

Is it time to call in an arborist? Any ideas what's going on with this little fella?



~Dave

On a side, note. One of my neighbors has a really sick tree (we think it's some sort of ash ill-suited for this region) that they had to do some heavy duty pruning on. For the past 3 weeks I've been seeing a pair of red headed sap suckers feasting on what's left of his tree. In the past few days alone the two of them have chiseled out four or five 50 cent piece sized cone-shaped holes in the poor thing. That's not counting the innumerable small sized holes they've made searching for bugs. Destructive little beasts!

Is there any chance that they're going to come after mine with what's going on with it? If so, is there something I can do to prevent them from getting to the area that's weeping sap? Are they really looking for sap or just bugs? So far they haven't touched my tree, but it's like only 50 feet away from their current victim..

~Dave

Actually, looking at that last pic, before reading your next post, I noticed that it looks like there are holes near the top of the damage in each case. Is that what I'm seeing? It immediately put me in mind of sapsuckers, although you usually see a bunch of holes together with most of them.

_________________
Shepherd of the Trees
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields we know so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

It's difficult to characterize them as holes exactly, but yes, there are several points where this sap/fluid is leaking from. It sort of spreads from a given point and then flows down the trunk. The areas where the seepage is occurring doesn't look like any borer holes that I've seen before, nor do they look like the sap sucker holes that I've been seeing in my neighbor's tree.

Then again, I'm pretty much clueless when it comes to tree problems and it might very well be either of those possibilities.

~Dave