Keeping oaks healthy.
Welcome to Tribemania Tree Services
Oak trees are one of our most precious assets we own. Unfortunately, live oaks and red oaks are very susceptible to a disease called oak wilt. Once a tree is infected with oak wilt, there is nothing that can be done to save the tree and it can spread to neighboring oak trees, causing massive amounts of damage and death. This disease is one of the most destructive tree diseases in the U.S and has killed more than 1 million trees in 76 Central Texas counties already.
The other disease that is affecting our oaks is oak decline.
Oak wilt and oak decline are two different diseases. Oak wilt is caused by a fungus and there is no cure for it. Oak decline is caused by stress and can be mitigated.
The primary stressors that are causing oak decline are:
Drought
Cedar dominance
Ball moss
Root damage
Overpopulation
Unhealthy growth patterns
Oak gall
Insects
Fungus
You can find more information about these stressors in our blog.
Unfortunately, we are losing almost 10-20% of our population each year due to oak decline and stress. And, without early detection and care of trees in oak decline, oaks can become more susceptible to oak wilt. The good news is that all of these stressors can be mitigated and in most cases the trees can be put back on a healthy track.
Tribemania Tree Services has successfully mitigated hundreds of oak trees in oak decline. Our number one goal is to maintain the overall health of oak trees so that they are less susceptible to oak wilt and the inevitable spread of the disease. One way we can do this is by proactively detecting and monitoring oak wilt hot spots in the area. This allows us to project oak wilt spread patterns and warn property owners so that they are not blindsided by an undetected spread. Early detection is key to eradicating this devastating disease.
Our services
Canopy Reshaping
Our canopy reshaping service is what we do most often. Most trees in our eco system have very unhealthy growth patterns that have evolved over time due to overpopulation, cedar dominance and lack of care.
We often see branches are growing downward with little or no horizontal lift. This type of growth is usually due to the tree’s effort to get to sunlight. Many times, one side of the canopy will be overly dominant compared to the other side. And sometimes there are too many trees resulting in overpopulation.
Ball Moss Spray Removal
There is a variance of opinion as to whether ball moss can kill a tree. By itself probably not, but when ball moss invades trees already under prolonged stress, it becomes a serious problem because it adds additional stress to the trees.
Oak Decline Mitigation
The Hill Country is a forest and eco system that is old and the trees are declining after years of prolonged stress. This has reached a point where most of the oak population is declining in healthy development.
Major stressors in our area are overpopulation of cedars, drought, and unhealthy growth patterns, along with ball moss, oak gall, fungus and insects. It’s imperative to have your trees mitigated of these stressors to ensure that they are on a healthy track and to keep further diseases, like oak wilt from infecting your trees.
Oak Wilt Monitoring
It’s estimated that 95% of trees killed by oak wilt is the result of the disease spreading through the interconnected roots. The challenge that this brings is how do we detect a disease that is spreading underground, out of visual sight as it spreads from tree to tree?
Root Zone Inoculation
After the February 2021 freeze, the oak population struggled to recover. As a result, trees in our area experienced budding and leaf production much later than normal. Other native species did not have the same struggle as the oak species.
It was only after an overabundance of rain that we began to see significant improvement. This observation reveals that the root system of the oak species is struggling to provide sufficient intake and uptake of water without an overabundance of water available in the root zone area.
“Mike is a tree whisperer. He totally transformed our yard into a place of beauty.”
— J Henderson, Canyon Lake Resident & Customer