Thank you so much wisconsitom! I appreciate the feedback. I'm sorry, I'm in zone 8b. San Antonio, TX. It is currently spring time here. I have ziplock bag of leaves I'm going to take to the nursery this morning and see if I can figure it out. I truly hope it's not. It's such a beautiful tree. We've had it about a year and haven't pruned anything on it.

Thank you so much for your response!!

If no other oaks in the immediate vicinity, less likelihood of it being oak wilt. Not completely impossible, just less likely. Oak wilt fungus is transmitted via two pathways: First, the picnic beetle, which you may have seen crawl inside your can of suds once or twice, is also fond of the yeasty smell/taste of oak wilt fungus, so flies from infected tree to non-infected at times, carrying bits of pathogen with it. The other means is via root grafts, oaks (and other species) having the ability to form combined root systems. This then makes for an easy pathway for disease to spread from tree to tree. Def. not your issue.

+om

We actually have two shummard oaks and another chinquapin in the backyard as well. I contacted our local arborist and emailed them some pics of the tree and their leaves. They also said it wasn't oak wilt, but we had planted our trees too deep. Their advice was to remove soil to root flare, correct girdling roots, and leave the flare exposed to air. What a relief to hear it wasn't oak wilt! I was worried about losing all of our trees.

Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with me, Wisconsitom!!

S'no problem. Hope you get your trees set right. Planting too deeply = number one problem with tree planting.

+oM