Why Is My Sweet Gum Tree Dying?

Canker Disease

• Canker diseases are a significant threat to the sweetgum tree as they cause sunken areas of dead or dying tissue to develop on the trunk accompanied by a severe "bleeding" of resin from the wood. The foliage of infected branches turns yellow or brown and wilts while some forms of canker disease also result in the formation of fungal, fruiting bodies on the bottom surface of afflicted leaves and branches. These cankers are often fatal to limbs or the entire tree.

Canker Control

• Canker is caused by a number of fungi that are attracted to wounded bark tissue. Once the tree is infected, the fungus produces spores that are spread to other areas of the tree. Sweetgum trees with only a light infection may recover if the infected area can be pruned away. However, no chemical control is available for canker, and trees severely infected are likely to die. The best prevention to avoid canker is to maintain the health and vitality of the tree while attempting to ensure that it receives few or no wounds to the bark.

Foamy Canker

• The sweetgum is susceptible to infection from a bacterial disease known as foamy canker or alcoholic flux. An unknown bacteria invades the tree, causing cracks or holes in the bark from which oozes a white, foamy substance with a strong odor of alcohol or fermentation. The wood beneath the bark typically begins to rot, turning white and mushy, before eventually turning brown and dying. Prevention of injury to the bark is the best management technique; severely diseased trees should be removed.

Artist's Conk

• Ganoderma applanatum, commonly known as Artist's Conk, is a wood-decaying fungal disease that invades the tree through wounds and kills the sapwood of many trees, including the sweetgum. Symptoms of this disease are the development of conks -- a shelf-like fungal bracket that extends outward from the tree -- near the base of the tree. However, rotting wood can extend 15 feet along the trunk in either direction from the conk. This fungal protrusion is brown on top and white on the bottom but turns dark when scratched -- hence the name "artist's conk."