It can affect any maple tree. The hopeful leaf tips and buds dried up seemingly overnight. This guide highlights the most common causes of damage to the shoots with tips for problem solving and prevention.
What can you do if the maple shoot is damaged?
Maple shoots can be damaged by late ground frosts, which create cold air lakes. To prevent this, affected trees can be given a regeneration period, cut back frozen shoots and be protected with breathable fleece. Potassium fertilization can also contribute to prevention.
Cold air lake causes the shoots to wilt
In spring, home gardeners often complain about wilting, dead shoots on the maple tree. After the first warm sunny days, the delicate, frost-sensitive leaves and buds sprout. If delayed ground frosts occur overnight, the fresh shoots have nothing to counteract them. The danger is high until mid-May. After the Ice Saints the situation calms down.
Like liquid, the cold flows down into plains and depressions. Real lakes of cold air form that put leaf and shoot tips in their frosty grip. The shoots of sycamore maple and field maple are less affected by frost damage than Norway maple and slot maple.
Repair and prevent damage to the shoots - this is how it works
Damage to fresh maple shoots caused by cold air is not a threat to the tree's existence. However, you should not take the problem lightly. Diseases and pests find their way into the interior of the tree via the frozen leaf tips and buds. This is how you act correctly and prevent further sprouting damage:
- Give the affected tree until the end of June to regenerate on its own
- Cut back frozen, dead shoots into he althy wood
- As a preventive measure, put on a hood made of breathable fleece overnight until after the Ice Saints
Are you unsure how far you should cut back after sprouting damage? Then do the vitality test. Scrape off a little of the bark below the last dead buds and leaf tips. If green tissue appears, you are in the living shoot area and can use the scissors there. Gray-brown to dark brown tissue indicates the dead wood area.
Potassium fertilization prevents frost damage to shoots
You can strengthen the winter hardiness of your maple tree by providing a targeted supply of nutrients in autumn. In September, apply a potassium-rich fertilizer, such as comfrey manure or patent potash. Potassium strengthens the cell walls in the tissue and lowers the freezing point in the cell sap.
Tip
Partial damage to the shoots in maple trees is caused by a dreaded disease. The pathogens of verticillium wilt penetrate a maple tree through the roots and block the supply channels. The result is wilted, dried leaves and limp shoots in places.
