One of my bosses, who is a Master Arborist, misdiagnosed the species off of visual appearance. Both of the potential occurrences of late pathogens tend to be more common in the southern states.
Oak decline is an acute biotic and mainly abiotic disorder we see in oak trees on a regular basis as invasive surface earthworms front more, the use of fungicides increases in residential areas, and the soil- root biosphere becomes a desert. Oaks, White Pines, and Hickory trees in my area are heavily reliant on mycorrhizal fungi and with the decline of the fungus we see more abiotic stress taking it’s tole on trees. Once vigor is lost trees can randomly abort limbs(sudden limb drop) via resource allocation stress, reduce leaf size, lose coloration(become nutrient depleted and chlorotic), and lose too much functional turgor. After this occurs an abiotic prossession becomes a positive feed back loop of stress opening up trees to disease/ pathogen/ or insects/pests; rather, finalized demise through biotic means. In the case today, we removed an oak that died “suddenly” due to hypoxylon canker, it had been in decline for years though. Hypoxylon is not sudden oak wilt though it may look similar; A tell tale sign that you have the correct culprit is black tar spotting in the grey patches vs none and if the red brim is smaller than the grey section. Hypoxylon is not a scratch and sniff species either where as oak wilt smells like cinnamon and wine. I will show pictures* not mine* of both cankers, Hypoxylon top, oak wilt bottom. While Hypoxylon mainly affects white oaks under drought conditions it will be problematic on red oaks too.
