Maple wilt, or Verticillium wilt, is a soil-borne fungus that primarily targets woody ornamental trees.  If your trees are infected, you’ll most likely see it on the oldest branches and leaves on the tree.  They’ll begin to develop yellow blotches on the lowest leaves and can end up killing off entire limbs of trees at once.  If you take a cross section of one of those branches, you should see a brown discoloration in the stem tissues of the plant; this is the fungus blocking the vascular tissues of the plant.  Without nutrients and water, the limbs and the leaves will begin to die off.

How To Treat Maple Wilt?

Unfortunately, you only have two options if you want to know how to treat maple wilt. While there is no cure for maple wilt, you can prevent it from spreading. Once maple wilt establishes itself in trees, it becomes incredibly difficult to control. If a tree is significantly infected, you should cut down and destroy that tree.  Otherwise if the infection seems minor, you may be able to save the maple tree by pruning the dead branches.

Prevention Is the Best Defense

Healthy trees are the least susceptible to maple wilt primarily because they can produce new vascular tissue to limit the damage caused by the fungus.  The best prevention is to keep your trees healthy all year round, meaning keeping your trees well-watered during dry seasons and well-groomed and fertilized during growing seasons.  Furthermore, you may want to consider purchasing maple wilt-resistant plants (usually marked with a V under the “disease resistance” portion of the tag).  It may also be helpful to regularly disinfect your garden tools, especially if you use them in gardens or soils other than your own, as you may be introducing new fungi.  Simply wash them in a 10% bleach solution or rubbing alcohol to kill off any residual fungi.

Have A Professional Remove An Infected Tree

Ultimately, you may not be able to save your maple trees.  If you need to cut down or even try to salvage infected maple trees, you should consult a professional tree removal service.  You should use TalkLocal so that you can talk with a high-quality, local professional in just minutes.  You’ll have a  personalized assessment about your maple trees in no time!

This entry was originally posted on Thursday, April 25th, 2013 at 10:00 am and is filed under Tree Removal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.