Japanese Maples: Help, this Japanese Maple is dying and I have to replace, 1 by crazy4plants

crazy4plants wrote:
I finally found a lab tech at WSU in the Tri-Cities area by googling and sent her several branch samples to be tested. The ext office here does not provide that test. I was told that conservation might provide a soil test for me but I will wait for these branch results first. If the branches test positive, then I don't need to test the soil. Mostly I get voice mail and slow resonses. Frustrating. The cut branches do not have the dark ring that is often accomanied by VW. I pruned off the dead branches yesterday and looked more closely at the tree. The branches that are dead are black, they look like they have been burned. There is death occuring in many areas of the tree but most of the tree looks good. If I remove the entire branch, it will not not have good form. I would like to know "why" so that I don't repeat with another tree. I have learned a lot about trees being sold that are already doomed. It this is not VW, I will plant another JM, hardier variety and make sure it is planted correctly. I don't know how long the testing takes. The sample should get there today. I'm going to post a few pictures that show the tree as of right now. I just snapped them. This put in the last picture and is not the one I wanted to show with the bad branch. But you can see the condition of the tree from this side as well. I'll post the worst branch and trunk in the next two posts
Crazy