North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Cabe, Paul" <CabeP@wlu.edu>]

Any advice or ideas appreciated.

We have two English walnut trees, about 80-90 yrs old.  When we moved into 
our house about ten yrs ago, they looked to be in pretty good shape, but are 
clearly suffering now.  Much of the smaller top wood is dead - very little 
growth from terminal buds, but they are pushing out new buds from lower down 
on the limbs.  They seemed pretty sick last year, too.  Both springs have 
been perhaps a little cooler and wetter than normal, and we see a fair amount 
of leaf disease (fungal?) later in the season, though new growth right now 
looks good, just rather sparse.  In addition to the small limbs and twigs 
appearing dead, there are a few larger limbs dead on both

We had work done on them two summers ago, in response to significant limb 
damage from a late spring heavy snow storm.  They removed some of the top 
wood and dead wood, and fertilized (a product injected into the soil).

We did have a fairly late freeze this year, but this is something we have 
lived through before, and the current pattern of foliage growth just looks 
different

I also see mushrooms / fungal growth at some of the broken or cut limb spots 
during the year.

Thanks,
Paul