Dawn Redwood Oozing Sap

This tree is at my FIL's house and each time I'm there I take a look around at their yard. Now I never noticed this until today so I'm thinking this is a fairly recent issue going on; perhaps in the last month. Much of the sap leaking out is clear and crystallized like glass. There does not appear to be any injuries or insect damage to the tree whatsoever. There are very many areas from the trunk where the sap is leaking out and no limbs have been cut off in the last few years. I've taken several pictures. Is this either normal (I'm not thinking so) or is there a borer problem in this tree?

I posted a similar question last year about my cunninghamia. Responders blamed it on woodpeckers. My tree still looks healthy. Maybe yours is a similar issue?
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1292898/?hl=cunninghamia

Hmm I really don't know what it could be but there is no damage to the trunk where it's leaking.

I looked at those images with interest, to see if there were the evidence of the small linear arrangement of holes that woodpeckers/sapsuckers make. I don't see that in those pictures.

I do suggest a possibility that few gardeners consider, despite having recently dealt with quite a winter. Snow and ice loads are not merely passing insults or ephemeral beauty of frosty landscapes, and the obvious breakage of limbs is not the only likely harm.

The bending and contorting of what are normally relatively stiff branches of woody plants leaves behind unseen and hidden damage to the external and internal components of trees and shrubs. Splits to bark and branch when bent, will close when the ice/snow goes away. You can't see it, but it happened. It doesn't go away, and its consequences may be what you are seeing some of now.

I suppose that there may be different answers to this issue, but knowing that gardeners don't often perceive that winter's snow and ice has caused damage other than absolute breakage is a first step toward watching for those consequences.

If winter injury is the culprit, does the damage threaten the health of the tree, or is it self-correcting...?

Any injury like that - whether winter or otherwise - is threatening.

A tree can recover from a lot of insults. It will depend on growing conditions (which in SE PA are pretty good outside of a hard winter) and insect/disease pressure on a stressed plant.

Knowing that Metasequoia glyptostroboides is normally a rather vigorous grower, and being outside its home turf it should not have a lot of pests after it, it is a species that I'd expect has a better chance at recovering if it had suffered damage from those causes. If it were a different kind of tree that was less thrifty anyway, I'd expect that would be beset with a range of problems, including fungal and bacterial attack into minute fissures in its wood. There would probably also potentially be circulation issues due to xylem/phloem damages.

Self-correcting is probably not a good term to use, because it presumes the gardener should play no role. Worry at least, and pay closer attention to these plants after this kind of upset. Straightening back up after being spread open like a tulip bloom was heartening to me, when my Cornus mas 'Golden Glory' did so after the last two ice storms in 2003 and 2009. I kept close eye on them though, and observed that they sulked quite a bit in succeeding years. This species is one that typically has no challenges here.

Plants will have to use resources to repair damages that they would otherwise use for optimal growth. I would look to provide supplemental water during drought periods, and possibly additional nutrition.

VV, all the sap is leaking right out of the truck and not from branches or branch crotches. This being said, do you still think it could have been the result of snow loads? Keep in mind too that this issue has only presented itself recently and has not been doing this all summer. This particular tree is not an optimum grower as it is trying to compete with a Pin Oak. This competition has stunted it's growth. Nonetheless, the truck diameter is approximately 15".

Trunk! Trunk!

Maybe the Pin (!) Oak is using it as a voodoo doll...

Not knowing whether that particular tree was contorted by winter's vagaries, I couldn't make any absolute statement. I just wanted to be sure that unusual circumstances were being considered, and offer a general heads-up to all reading here about similar instances where they garden.

Next time you visit, take some non-invasive actions to make closer determinations. A pocket knife in hand, probe around what appears to be one of the points of origin of the oozing sap. None of your images above show this very clearly. Peeling/scraping away a little bark should not make any of these conditions any worse, and you/we will all learn something from the effort. Show before, during, and after images.

There has to be a break in the bark through to the xylem/phloem, because that is where the plant's "ooze" will be coming from. If you were really on top of things - and daring - you'd taste the ooze to say if it has plant sweeteners in it. Were you a diagnostician, you could then sample and analyze the ooze for levels of plant nutrients.

I kid a bit, of course. Comes from having tasted a variety of plant parts on the weekend's hike around Jessamine Creek gorge with a bunch of plant geeks.

Your input is always appreciated of course 😀. Maybe I'll stop over tomorrow and do a little poking around with a knife and a real camera rather than just the iPhone. The Pin is in major decline and a few years from now it will likely be gone. That would give credence to the voodoo doll theory.

I went over and took a couple more pics yesterday but I can't really tell anything of what is happening. I peeled the bark back a little. The sap doesn't taste sweet but rather woody, just like it smells.

Any late freezes afflict this tree this spring?

Unless you made quite a vertical gouge there, you could be showing us a frost crack of sorts.

April 16, 17, 18th were 28, 30, and 30 overnight. That first hard freeze hammered the Gingkos in the area, including mine.

I recall enduring a similar mishap here - tickling the Ginkgo (spell czech) and mauling the Metasequoia.

So you think that's what it was? Why would it present in the last month then?

I was thinking freeze fractures as well Sequoia. Perhaps the warmth of the summer liquified the sap sufficiently to ooze through the small fissures...or, this is the natural time of year for the Metasequoia sap to run.

I don't even play an Arborist on TV...

and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night either...so, my guess is as good as the next...lol.

Very interesting. I've never heard of such thing. I'll have to check it out online. Thanks guys for the info!