Holistic Approach to Tree Disease

A holistic approach emphasizes prevention and longevity rather than just treating symptoms. For tree health and for disease treatments, trees must be considered alongside their environments, as they are inseparable. In some cases, the benefit of treating a tree does not out-weigh the strain put on the environment.

Just like within us humans, there are many different interworking systems within trees that each influence one another. Going heavy on pruning, for instance, may inadvertently lead to infection or decline in tree health.

Stressors

Most urban tree diseases (or rather dis-eases), can ultimately be traced back to environmental sources. They could be anything from the soil around the tree being too compacted, to an excessively rainy summer.

Tree First’s holistic practice with disease addresses the abiotic stressors first and foremost because most of the stressors urban trees deal with are largely abiotic in nature. The more stressed a tree is, the more likely it is to be infected by pathogens.

The piling up of stressors leads to disease

Trees gradually accumulate stressors as they age. Healthy trees can handle one or two significant stressors without showing obvious symptoms for a very long time. As they accumulate more and more stress, their capacity to function normally diminishes. 

As you can probably imagine, highly stressed trees are more susceptible to debilitating diseases or just declining overall. An otherwise benign stressor to a healthy tree can be fatal to a highly stressed tree.

In order to maintain healthy trees, aim to reduce the amount of stress the tree faces.

When it comes to tree health over the long term, there are no one-and-done procedures. It’s important to emphasize that tree care takes time. Trees respond very slowly to stimuli and to new changes in their environments.

Critical Scenarios

In our region of southeast Michigan, there are two major fungal diseases that can kill perfectly healthy trees very quickly: Oak Wilt and Dutch Elm Disease. Both diseases are incurable fungal diseases that oaks and elms can contract that are 100% fatal.

Both of these fungal infections can be prevented by a significant percentage through the use of chemical fungicides. When chemicals are necessary, Tree First utilizes trunk injection tools in order to keep the chemical inside the tree–and nowhere else.