|
Besides butt cavities and the girdling roots mentioned in Chapter IV, other troubles in his trees' lower extremities that a home owner can spot and attend to are burns, root scars, and cavities, animal damage (gnawing by rabbits, rubbing by horses and cows, antler-raking by deer), and insect invasions (ants, grubs, borers). Against these latter, potent poisons now come in aerosol form. A few squirts from the can's nozzle and you fill the beasties' tunnels and galleries with lethal DDT vapor—much more effective than the pastes and slurries we used to mix up and poke in. Sometimes trees "bleed" persistently from old wounds that appear to be almost, but not quite, healed. The exudate smells foully and it discolors, even kills, all bark that it oozes down over. This is called "slime flux" and it comes from high sap pressure in poorly conditioned trees. Actually it is of two kinds, "brown" and "alcoholic." The former is a leakage of xylem (heartwood) sap from the root system, darkened by fungi and bacteria. It may be checked (but seldom cured) by boring holes into the heartwood at intervals directly below the old, fluxing wound, and inserting pipes, which should be long enough to carry the drip out away from bark and roots. The more curable "alcoholic" slime is just that—a leakage of phloem (outer layer) enriched sap from the tree's crown, in which sugars and starches are fermenting. This kind, white and bubbly, comes out low on the tree as a rule. It can usually be stopped by retracing and redressing (with shellac) the old wound that is exuding. All trees showing slime flux should be generously fed. |
|||
|
