
Good oak wilt management service consists of three parts: diagnosis, treatment and follow up. If you suspect oak wilt on your property it is important to meticulously disect each of these aspects individually.
The first step before beginning oak wilt treatments is to establish a confident
diagnosis. Identifying oak wilt is not easy. Foliar symptoms for oak wilt are
the same as many other tree disorders. The most important diagnostic element to
establish is a pattern of spread; this is the most identifiable symptom of oak
wilt. Sometimes a pattern of spread on a site is obvious, sometimes not. If oak
wilt is suspected and a pattern of disease spread is not obvious, we highly
recommend a monitoring program where photographic evidence of the trees is taken
3 to 4 times over the course of a year. It is important to know that there are
many other disorders that can kill oak trees. Many lay persons believe that this
is the only tree disease that kill oaks, The truth is that oak wilt is not even
the number one killer we deal with, it's just the most well known.
See this blog post for more details on identifying oak wilt.
Oak wilt treatments consist of fungicide injections applied into the trunk of the tree.
There are two techniques used to inject the fungicide: macro-injection and
micro-injection. Macro requires drilling larger holes and using a larger
volume of water. Micro requires smaller holes to be drilled and uses a smaller
volume of water. Both techniques use the same amount of fungicide active ingredient.
Macro injection produces more wounding to the tree and is significantly more labor
intensive to apply. The macro technique has remained popular simply because it
was developed first. Our experience is that both techniques produce the same
results. Austin Tree Experts recommends micro injection for three reasons:
requires less wounding to the tree, less labor costs to apply, and less risk
of failed treatments.
This is what sets Austin Tree Experts apart from the rest of the crowd. We have a
dedicated arborist for follow ups. If your plan is to treat your trees and then turn
a cold shoulder assuming the problem is solved, then save your money, because it isn't
going to work. Trees metabolize the treatments which means the treatments need to be
reapplied every 12-18 months. You are going to need regular monitoring to know
exactly when to retreat. Also, there are other tree disorders that your trees could
succumb to . We include timely fertilization with the monitoring program to help
prevent other problems from surfacing. This is complete tree health care
management.