Arboriculture

Trying again, is this fungus a death sentence?


Silver maple with polypore growing in a friends yard. She wants to know if it’s treatable or doomed to a slow death.

by flickerbirdie

2 Comments

  1. htffhkkyfc

    Usually shroomies aren’t the problem but a sign that there is a problem. I hesitate to make diagnostic assumptions on the internet but that wound in the second pic may be your problem

  2. Imagine if someone ripped off one of your arms and then sent you on your way. You might not bleed to death but there’s a pretty good chance some bacteria makes its way into the wound and you slowly start to die over time.

    This is kind of the situation that this tree is in, pretty dumbed down analogy but you get the idea.

    In all seriousness though, silver maples are fairly brittle trees that are prone to internal decay and this one has a MASSIVE open wound that doesn’t appear to have any amount of compartmentalization around it. This significantly affects the structural integrity of the tree. It also appears that the majority of the weight/lean of the tree is towards habitable structures, which would bump up the amount of associated risk a bit more.

    With all that being said, it could hold strong for another 20 years or it could completely fall apart the next heavy storm that comes through. If it were my tree I would remove it or at the very least do some HEAVY weight reduction pruning and install a few cables.

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