Help ID these spots?

Dewey, AZ(Zone 7a)

Monterrey Oak, badly planted a couple years ago, (backfilled with loose compost, suffered serious neglect during first year of of establishment) but we brought it back around with some TLC our first year in this house (May 2013 to now).

Tons of new growth, but the leaves had these spots, and there's a whitish fungus looking stuff in one of the cracks of the trunk near the ground.

Ideas for what this is, (or is it two separate issues) and what, if anything, we should do about it?
Thanks in advance.

Thumbnail by TexasDollie Thumbnail by TexasDollie Thumbnail by TexasDollie
Anne Arundel,, MD(Zone 7b)

Hi, sorry you haven't had an answer.

The leaf spots look like a fungus to me but I am far from the best source. Are all branches seemingly affected to the same degree?
The fungus in a crack on the trunk sounds more serious.

I'm guessing one of the better ones here will say it had been severely stressed and now suffering two different problems due to that.

Dewey, AZ(Zone 7a)

Thanks for weighing in, Sally. I've bought an antifungal, but figure I'll wait until spring to try it. The spots do seem to be a symptom of the tree's earlier stress, as the newer leaves don't have it nearly so bad. No evidence of it anywhere except the leaves. The brown leaf edges are just winter burn...I'm hoping another year of good water and the right nutrients will have this fellow in good health.

Vienna, VA(Zone 7a)

I agree with Sally; it looks as if your oak is diseased.
I try to avoid using triple-barreled non-organic products when at all possible, but if this were my tree, I'd do what I recently did for my young maple after I discovered that an insect had bored through a limb to the trunk: mix up a batch of systemic (mix and pour) Bayer or Ortho 3-in-1 disease and insect control and fertilizer and pour it on right now. Hopefully, it'll recover and you won't have to bring out the big guns again.


This message was edited Feb 14, 2014 8:51 PM

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