Located in Ontario, Canada
Something has been boring inside my maple and created a gnarly wound.
Since I noticed it a few weeks ago I’ve been spraying the area regularly with safer’s soap. Not sure if that’s been helpful or not.
I haven’t actually seen whatever pest is causing this, the only thing I’ve seen around the wound area are earwigs but from my understanding they just feed on decaying plant matter so they probably showed up after the fact
by modifiedbASS
3 Comments
No expert here! But I’d imagine that’s sun scald or frost cracks. Good luck.
Small frost crack possibly. The bark separates from the vascular layer. The tree is already healing itself. Insects get behind the separated bark and the birds will seek them out. The leaves are showing signs of a manganese deficiency, a micro- nutrient.
I doubt its borers, my bet would be either an impact wound that killed a section of tissue or sunscald/frost crack, especially if it’s on the south side of the tree. You don’t need to do anything to the wound, the tree will either seal the injury on its own or it won’t. Doesn’t look too bad, though the bark will probably flake off more in the coming years to reveal the full extent of the injury.
However, the tree is a little bit stressed. That photo of the leaves shows a mineral deficiency, probably manganese but could be iron. It doesn’t look bad enough to bother treating in and if itself, but I would look up some videos on exposing root flare and proper mulching for trees. And remove whatever weed barrier is near the trunk, it’s not great for it to be around the tree.