I’ve been lurking on this forum for a while learning enough to get my garden in good shape. Made an account hoping I could get some thoughts and advice. I moved into a new construction neighborhood in central Indiana in December 2021. Throughout the neighborhood, the landscaping packages with the houses included Thornless Honey Locust trees. My own Honey Locust and almost every other one in the neighborhood are not doing to great. Here’s a picture of mine, they all look roughly like this (although some are even worse)
My tree gets watered via sprinkler for roughly 60 minutes per day, usually in the morning. For my tree in particular, I have also fertilized with the slow release stakes. I know others in the neighborhood water them similarly. The soil we have is pretty poor, after you get maybe 6-8 inches deep it has a ton of clay and rocks.
Any ideas on why all of these trees are not doing so well? At first I thought maybe heat stress, especially since the pattern on a lot of them is that one side of the tree seems to be leafless. But there aren’t any yellow/brown leaves that have any signs of heat stress so I’m not sure.
I also did some more investigating on my own tree. In the comments below I added these pictures.
Some spots have lost the green under the bark but they don’t look totally dead.
I also noticed some white spots on many of the trees, including my own, pictures in the comments. Is this a sign of disease?
Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated, you all have helped me with my garden a ton already. I’m the president of my HOA so I’m really hoping I can give some guidance to all the homeowners that have this same issue with the Honey Locust trees, I’m sure nobody is thrilled about the idea of spending $500+ to replace their tree.
For my yard, the sprinkler only hits the base of the trees, it doesn’t go more than a foot above the tree base. I know some people use fan style sprinklers in the neighborhood though. But for mine, the sprinkler doesn’t hit the parts of the tree that have those white spots.
I don’t know what’s appropriate for your location. I live in semi-arid southern CA. Most of my in-ground plants are watered once per week for 8 minutes, and a few of them twice per week for 8 minutes. Each plant has a dedicated sprinkler head.
Honey Locusts are pretty resistant to drought, poor soil, and heat. I don’t think I would bother watering them anywhere near that much and I wouldn’t fertilize either. Even when grown in pots, my honey locust trees are the most tolerant potted plants I grow when it comes to water/nutrients/heat. I even have an extra one in a 1 gallon grow bag that is usually bone dry before I water the pots and it does just fine.
I would suspect , THYRONECTRIA CANKERS
The white spots I see in your photo are lichens, they are not the problem.
Watering every day in Indiana is unnecessary, maybe detrimental.
You may be drowning the tree.
watering the equivalent of a inch of rain , once a week ( if no rain )
Should be sufficient.
( or none at all for a established tree that size )
Pruning out dead / dying branches would be a good start.
Page 2-3 of below .
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Something may be stressing the trees to cause this,
Too much water?
Weed and feed lawn fertilizer ?
Other ?
Most of what I have read about this recommends pruning out dead branches , reducing stress , no magic cure
Honey Locusts have very extensive root systems that are close to the surface in addition to a deep tap root. When you are fertilizing and watering your lawn your tree is getting the water and fertilizer. I wouldn’t use fertilizer stakes.
