deformed growth on bald cypress

[Joe Dupre']

Hi, all. This is my first post and I sure hope someone can help with cypress. I dug up the tree this year in mid-Feb. It's got a 15" wide base decreasing to a 2 7/8" diameter at 34 inches tall. I plan to do some kind of broken top , hollowed out old survivor type of tree.

The tree has been growing like mad..... putting out 40 shoots with half of them 8-10" long. The problem is the foliage is deformed. The leaves don't open up to a nice feathery shape like normal leaves do. They are compressed into tight rolls with the tips ending in firm, compressed clumps of leaflets. There's a little browning and curling of the leaflets on the very tips.

I've done hours of research on the net and have talked to my county agent with no real answers.

Any thoughts?

 

[Mellow Mullet]

Picture?

 

[Joe Dupre']

Picture?

Here's a pic.

 

[Mellow Mullet]

Interesting, what is it growing in. Bald cypress are very tough trees. When I got my divorce, the ex-wife did not water mine for three months, all the foliage was brown and most had fallen off. I managed to bring it back to life. It might just be a reaction to the transplant.

John

 

[Joe Dupre']

Interesting, what is it growing in. Bald cypress are very tough trees. When I got my divorce, the ex-wife did not water mine for three months, all the foliage was brown and most had fallen off. I managed to bring it back to life. It might just be a reaction to the transplant.

John

I took it from the swamp with most of it's native soil and put it in a tote with some top soil from around the cypress trees growing in my yard. I submerged the tote in the bayou behind the house to within 2 inches of the soil line.....almost the exact conditions it was collected from. Time from collecting to finish potting.....about an hour. It started putting out shoots like crazy. The branches looked like they were growing so fast that the bark got a rich dark green and shiny ...... like it was engorged.

About a month ago, thinking that maybe it was symptom of chlorosis, I slip potted it and filled in with Napa #8822 and pine bark mulch and took it out of the bayou. I had a hunch the chlorosis was caused by the alkaline water in the bayou due to runoff of farming chemicals.

The growth seems to be somewhat better, but still not near normal.

Joey

 

[Mellow Mullet]

Hmmmm... So the deformed foliage started after you repotted and took it out of the bayou? I could be that the deformity is a reaction to the new conditions. It sounds like it was growing fine until then. New growth on bald cypress is very dark green and it stays that way for a couple of months until it hardens off and turns reddish brown, the dominant shoots can be quite thick compared to others. Chlorosis (not sure it I spelled it right) causes the leaves to turn yellow or splotchy green/yellow and is caused by an iron deficiency. I think the wonky new leaves is just a reaction to being taken out of the bayou and put into new soil

John

 

[Joe Dupre']

Hmmmm... So the deformed foliage started after you repotted and took it out of the bayou? I could be that the deformity is a reaction to the new conditions. It sounds like it was growing fine until then. New growth on bald cypress is very dark green and it stays that way for a couple of months until it hardens off and turns reddish brown, the dominant shoots can be quite thick compared to others. Chlorosis (not sure it I spelled it right) causes the leaves to turn yellow or splotchy green/yellow and is caused by an iron deficiency. I think the wonky new leaves is just a reaction to being taken out of the bayou and put into new soil

John

The deformed growth started from the beginning ....when it was still in the bayou. It started from the first inch of the emerging shoots. I had a 3" diameter cypress growing in water for 12 years and it never had any growth like this. Oh, by the way, I checked the foliage closely with a loupe and could find no sings of insects.

Hopefully, it will come back healthy in the spring with bare rooting and a really good soil mix.

Joe

 

[FrankP999]

The brown tips look like some sort of chemical damage. You mentioned some agriculture runoff. I wonder if there is a connection. Sometimes Roundup will curl or deform leaves. What do you think is in the runoff?

 

[sorce]

Looks Like some kind of gall, no?

You see that growth?

That's likely the problem, whatever it is.

Sorce

 

[Joe Dupre']

Sorce, there were a couple of those galls on the tree and I trimmed them off. From what I've read, they do no real harm to the tree unless it is really infested with them. The bayou behind the house is fed by the Mississippi River , then it comes down 6 miles past my house , passing by drainage ditches from cane fields, not to mention the dozens of homes that release who-knows-what into it. Chemical damage is a very probable cause for the deformity. I flush it every day with plenty of fresh water and am fertilizing it sparingly to give it the nutrients it needs.

 

[Joe Dupre']

Ok, after hours of research , I've come to the conclusion that the problem was caused by the run-off from the neighbor's yard that was HEAVILY sprayed with Round-up. The neighbor sprayed over 1000 square feet of bayou bank with a weed killer a couple of months ago. This is 50 feet upstream from where the cypress was sitting in the shallow water. The active ingredient in Round-up is glyphosate.......thought to only be effective if sprayed on green foliage. Studies have found that it can be taken into a plant's system through the roots and cause all manner of problems......most notably- foliage deformity. The symptoms and evidence all point to this being the problem. There seems to be no antidote to this condition except for removing the offending chemical from the soil and letting the plant hopefully regain it's health on it's own.

To this end, I think the tree needs to be repotted with fresh soil. Early June with temps in the 80's .... about two months after full leaf out. Should I go for it or let it grow until this coming spring and repot then???

Joe

 

[JoeR]

Im sure that was it. I have been having the exact same problem with my only bald cypress that I bought from Brent. It started budding out like crazy, they opened a little and then they looked like yours and then they all browned off. I was certain it was dead so I left it unwatered and dry for weeks then suddenly one day I saw a new bud so I put it in a tray of water. Behold, weeks later it is growing like a weed and is very healthy. It still has shoots that do this occasionally but it's not an issue anymore.

The cause? There was no way a pesticide got on this tree unless it happened at Brents which is unlikely. It wasn't a lack of water or fertilizer. So I got to thinking, and then I remembered I had some issues with spider mites so I sprayed a concoction I saw online that claimed it would get rid of them. I Have no doubt that was it, because I remember after I started spraying them the curling got worse. It was too strong of a dose done too often which poisoned the tree. Roundup can defiantly do the same.

Hose her down good and Make sure you really rinse every inch of the tree and pot and keep it far away from that stream. I never repotted mine, I just rinsed it and it came out fine after I thought it died.

Good luck with yours. Hope I helped.

 

[Joe Dupre']

Joe, thanks for the reply and the info. I'm pretty sure it's a chemical thing and the tree is still sitting in about 30% of the soil it had while still in the bayou. I'd imagine that a portion of the chemicals are still in the soil. At this point, I think the prudent thing to do is water the heck out of it and keep it mildly fertilized so it can build up it's health. I'll repot it this coming spring.

 

[JoeR]

It just depends what kind of soil it's in. If it's mostly inorganic Id imagine it can just be rinsed out after a couple waterings which would be less stressful than a repotting. If it's mostly organic you might have to repot it.

 

[FrankP999]

I would try a partial soil replacement. You could take out a pie shaped wedge of old soil and replace with fresh. In a month, if it tolerated that, do another wedge. Flood the container with fresh water daily to try and wash out the glypho. Good luck.

 

[Joe Dupre']

It's mostly organic ......basically the soil that it was in while in the wild. I had washed some of the original soil out and filled in with 50% inorganic/50% pine bark a month ago. I have the container sitting in a tub of water up to the soil line. I'll let it soak overnight and drain it in the morning and probably repeat that a couple of times. That should wash away the bulk of any chemicals still in the soil. The tree is still growing new, green foliage...........still a bit deformed but getting better.

 

[jk_lewis]

You know, of course that your neighbor broke the law by spraying Roundup so near a waterway. But I guess anything goes in (I assume) Louisiana.

That said, Roundup should cause a general wilting of leaves; no gall-like growths, browning, etc. It also need to be applied directly to the green leaves.

 

[DougB]

Interesting because many of us have used Roundup for years. Regarding tree roots taking up enough to cause harm, I ran across this from the University of Florida. "This occurs most commonly in a flood situation. For example, if a heavy rain of 2 in. or more occurs after glyphosate has been applied on organic mulch, the glyphosate could move into any standing water in the landscape. This water will then move down through the soil profile and could enter the root zone of the desired vegetation. While the amount of glyphosate in the water will be extremely small, it can cause stunting and yellowing of the growing points of the desired vegetation." Here is the link.

 

[Joe Dupre']

Doug, that just about exactly describes my situation. I, too, use Round-up, but will be much more cautious with it in the future.