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River birch leaves yellowing and dropping

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Posted by paulsiu 5a (My Page) on
Sat, Jun 2, 12 at 8:33

My river birch is turning yellow and dropping leaves. I notice that my neighbor's tree are doing the same thing, just not as badly. It's been close to 90 for a few days and it didn't rain for a while, so perhaps the tree is suffering from the heat. Last year, the same thing happen when the heat went up.

Here's a soil test I did a year or two ago:

Organic Matter, 7.4% (very high)
Phosphorus 9 ppm P (very low)
Potassium 168 ppm K (medium)
Magnesium 805 ppm Mg (very high)
Calcium 3150 ppm ca (medium)
cation Exchange Capacity 22.9 meq/100g (very high)
pH 7.5 (slightly alkaline)

Since river birches like acid soil, it's possible that the alkaline soil is preventing it from taking in iron. I tried to look at a few leaves and see if they have green veins, but the result are inconclusive, I do see a few that looks like they have green veins, but a few of teh leaves look like they just turn yellow with green spotches as if the leaves didn't turn yellow all the way. What should I be doing? I was thinking of the following action:

1. Give the tree water when it gets hot.
2. Add some iron, not sure how to do that. I don't want to spray the stuff if I can avoid it. May be a pour product or one of those things you bury. Does it affect the other plants?
3. Add sulfur to the soil.

Paul

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RE: River birch leaves yellowing and dropping

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Paul, you've pretty much got it figured out: A too-high soil pH combined with chronic dryness are the likely culprits. I have turned these things around with a combination of soil sulfur, wide mulch rings under the trees, and supplemental watering. Where I happen to live, there's plenty of iron in the soil but for species like RB, it is unavailable due to high soil pH. If that is also true of your location, the sulfur alone will, in time, correct that issue.

+oM

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