What is up with this oak?

[Thesnarlingbadger]

First post in a while as I’ve been pretty hectic. But have just had a quite flick through some recent posts and remembered why I think this forum is great. Such a good source of information with a friendly/amusing bunch of folk. Anyway enough of the ass kissing....

 

I have recently looked at a job to take out another tree and spotted this oak.

 

Am a bit concerned about it but not sure what is up with it.

 

The tree is touching 11k lines but not sure if it’s been fried because of this or if it is a disease.

 

One of the lads said it may be sudden Oak death but I can’t see this myself as it’s just a shed load of dead wood.

 

I’ve took my client that oaks are fairly solid and hold on to there dead pretty well, I’ve also mentioned that it is likely to keep declining so will should think about a corse of action.

 

Pictures are below. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

Thanks people

 

[devon TWiG]

My first suspicion would be that oil tank !!   how long has it been there ?  construction of concrete pad it sits on ? were roots severed laying a pipe from tank to house ?  spillage of oil contaminating ground ?    lines are LV 240 not 11KV  ,   just my initial thoughts ....

[Rough Hewn]

It's old, it's dying.
It'll fall over at some point in the next century.
I think twig is right about the oil tank though.
[emoji106]

[Khriss]

22 minutes ago, Rough Hewn said:

It's old, it's dying.
It'll fall over at some point in the next century.
I think twig is right about the oil tank though.

Yup. Old guy going veteran. Fracture prune overextended laterals- leave the top crown. Mulch 3m radius an monitor oil tank. It will see me n thee out. K

[Thesnarlingbadger]

Ahh nice one. I didn’t even consider the oil tank ?‍♂️. Ok great I will speak to them and suggest fracture pruning and turning it in to a vet. Thank you guys.

[Khriss]

Pick yr timing fr best reaction- May July time when sap flow is at its best. K

[Steve Bullman]

Oil tank doesn't appear particularly old, but that would also by my first cause of concern...the trees obviously struggling. Some sort of bund lining would be a good start if its found to be the culprit.

[Thesnarlingbadger]

Cheers guys. Going to do the job mid November and I’ll suggest carrying out the work on the Oak around may time. Gives me a chance to sort out a shut down on the lines (still I’m sure I’ll get messed around last minute). Nice one [emoji106]

[Guest]

Like others have said it's just an old tree. I doubt the oil tank has been an issue unless the old one spilled its entire contents and this is a new replacement, in which case it should already be bunded to meet regs anyway. If it was a slow leak I'd expect to see dieback on just the tank side of the tree, whereas this looks a pretty even dieback all-over. similarly with the construction of the pad and oil line. The pad only needs to be 4-6" thick and even with a hardcore base I wouldn't expect that amount of a reaction to it and the 10mm pipe would only be a narrow trench. Personally I'd just remove the branch over the tank, in the LV and any other large wood that's likely to hit the tank, and leave it at that. As there aren't any other targets why add to the tree's stress?

[Gary Prentice]

6 hours ago, Rough Hewn said:

It's old, it's dying.

Don't tell the owner it's dying, they'll want it out.

 

It's in a late growth/late mature, whatever - forming a new smaller crown as they don't really extend for-ever. 

Can't really tell from the photo's but it looks to be re-iterating well so hopefully will recover from whatever has stressed it and will be good for a couple more centuries