Leaves
By Bryce Neilson,
It is that
time of year when everyone starts to talk about the fall colors. There is no
A different
phenomena has been occurring in the aspen, cottonwoods, and poplars this
year. They are both closely
related. As I have traveled around this
summer I have seen the healthy aspen and then what looked like trees that were
dying. I had never seen it to this
extent before. After some research I
learned that the trees were having their leaves browned by the fungus Marssonia commonly known as Leaf
Spot.
The leaf
spots are dark brown flecks, often with yellow halos. On severely infected leaves, spots fuse
together to form large, dead patches in late summer. Marssonia
survives in the winter on fallen leaves that were infected the previous year. With a warm spring and lots of moisture like
we had in May, the fungus produces millions of microscopic spores that are
carried by the wind and infect emerging leaves.
This can cause premature leaf loss in infected trees. It typically does not hurt the tree but may
have an impact on older, less healthy trees.
So what can
you do about it? Raking up the dead
leaves and pruning out branches with cankers.
You can also apply a fungicide at the proper time.
Mother Nature
is interesting and does many things to confound humans. The Populus
family is fragile and especially susceptible to diseases. In the forest you rarely take notice of the
individual trees, but in your landscape it is a different story. I guess the moral of this story is that
weather and dead leaves will have future impact on your trees. They won‘t die but just look bad so don’t get
all wound up if it happens to you. It
has been happening for millennia. Let’s enjoy
the fall colors before the trees are just branches surrounded by snow.
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