What's happening to my maple tree????

Upon returning from 10 days away we saw that the leaves on the lower half of a maple tree had died. Any idea what this is? I've also put in calls to some tree companies as it doesn't like there's time to spare.

Here are five more pictures. The bright green leaves in pictures of the trunk are from neighboring saplings. The mark on the trunk doesn't look new or open.

And here's the last picture.

tia
las

my guess is Anthracnose. I would check with an arborist however.

Two arborists told me over the phone that it could be verticilium wilt, but the first said we were out of his geographical territory. The second had seen my pictures and advised me to cut a limb and peel back the bark and if there were green streaks that would be it. If not, wait til next spring. Is anthracnose treatable?

Here are two pictures of the branch we stripped the bark from. I don't see any green streaks, but I'm not sure it was big enough. Are you familiar with verticilium wilt in trees?

I also thought this could be Verticilium wilt since leaves and branches can be wilted or brown while the rest of the tree is doing well. I believe older trees can recover from the fungal infection and I am not aware of any fungicides that treat it. Affected trees often have dark streaks in the sapwood of 2-3 year old or older wood. Symptoms of the disease could be more severe in summer during water stress in mid summer.

However the close ups with the pictures of the leaves...with portions of the leaves with some green made me suspect Anthracnose. Usually in Vericilium wilt the leaves on the affected branches are completely brown. For Anthracnose you can apply fungicides like captan and strobiluran types of fungicides from now until fall.

How does one apply a fungicide to a 3 story tall tree?

For those that have been watching this thread, 3 arborists are pretty sure, based on the pictures, that it's not vericilium wilt, which tends to attack one branch at a time. They all speculated about some chemical dump (small) or physical damage to the routes. The fact that a couple of saplings are also affected tends to rule out physical damage. Anyway, it's a church next door, and I'm pretty sure nothing of that sort has happened in recent memory. One arborist suggested leaf scorch, but from what I saw in the web it doesn't seem likely. The leaves all went completely brown in a very short time (those on the lower half of the tree). And we haven't had extreme weather that out of line.

We found a saplng maple with the same problem about a hundred feet away. Sigh. Sounds like some sort of infectious thing.

I would hire a reputable arborist willing to come and take a look at the tree and perhaps treat it if necesary.

The trouble is none of the ones I have found come this far out. But neither did they hold out hope for a treatable condition. We'll just keep our fingers crossed all winter. That's going to make cleaning up the garden tricky. Not to say just getting dressed in the morning!! :-) Thanks for all your attention to my poor tree!

We finally found an arborist with good recommendations nearby. He's confident it's vercillium wilt and recommends not pruning until we see how the tree is responding. He doesn't want to charge us for pruning if the only answer is to take the tree down. Sigh, sigh. We planted it there 40 years ago, rolling the rootball across the ground from where we dug it up. We've loved how big and bountiful it got. Sigh, sigh.

Last year the maple looked as healthy as ever. (My problem occurred in the summer of 2013.) I just now found the picture I took in 2014 to demonstrate its health. My understanding was that a tree could survive verticulum wilt, but that the affected branches would die. Does this mean it was not verticulum wilt or that my understanding was wrong?

tia
las

Verticillium attacks the conductive tissue inside the branches. Once attacked they do not recover. Any recovery comes from elsewhere around the tree, or higher branches that start leaning downward to fill the space left by the dead ones.

Anthracnose is generally a surface problem, attacking new growth, but not lodging inside the plant. It can be seasonal, and vary in severity from one year to the next.
Generally, mild, wet weather is great for the organisms that cause anthracnose, allowing them plenty of time to grow and spread.
Prolonged heat/dry weather slows it down. Here in my part of CA for example, several trees get anthracnose in the spring, but almost nothing in the summer. In mild wet springs the disease can totally defoliate some species. This year I have seen almost no anthracnose (never zero- but a lot less than average).

If the problem with the maple had to be one of these, then given the pictures I would think more likely anthracnose.

Diana_k, thanks for this helpful info. I'm not sure at all that the problem HAD to be anthracnose or verticillium. It's just that those were the only suggestions offered. Can you suggest other possible causes? Although from your description, anthracnose seems to be a very likely culprit.

Also, it seems that I ought to be able to cut off a small branch and take it somewhere for diagnosis if this should happen again. True?

thanks again
Las

In most states there are branches of the department of agriculture, and whatever university in the state has an agriculture program usually operates branch offices called Extension services.
Local nurseries may have employees certified in different branches of ornamental horticulture. You would generally need to bring the samples to them.

Tree experts are licensed arborists, and should also know diseases that attack the trees in their service area. They will make house calls, for a price.