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Trees
chynnaski

Sick Catalpa

11 years ago


This is the second year that my young catalpa has looked like this. Starts the spring off looking nice & then the leaves start turning yellow & get dry brown spots. Those spots get holes in them. We water plenty & added iron to the ground around it. No signs of bugs. Any ideas?

Featured Answer
  • 11 years ago

    Jan, you've already done the two things I would have recommended. Evidently, you are aware of the problem for some plants of a too-high soil pH, locking iron out from being absorbed by the roots. Perhaps another way to try to rectify what may be the problem would be to try to directly influence the soil pH downward via soil sulphur. This inexpensive material is slow-acting but then again , once activated via soil bacteria, can go on for some time to help lower pH.

    Now, this is all based on the guesstimate that the chlorosis is due to an iron deficiency being cause by a too-high soil pH. Another mineral nutrient that can also be made unavailable to certain plants for the very same reason is manganese. However, if you were to treat the soil with the sulphur, you'd be correcting that too.

    Beyond these ideas, it may be time to send a sample into your Extension Hort. Agent, assuming your state is not in the midst of destroying this most helpful agency like a certain state governor and legislature I can think of.

    Finally, I would be remiss if I were not to mention the possibility of this being a nitrogen issue. I do see green grass in the background, so that's why I didn't reach that conclusion initially. But, this type of chlorosis can be indicative of that as well. We're mostly not real big on fertilizing trees on this board, but there are certainly cases where it can be justified, and this may be one of them. Again, the color of the turf makes me doubt this somewhat, but what have you to lose by looking into it?

    +oM

    Comments (8)

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