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<pre>On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 22:07:19 +1100, A& J Leslie wrote:
>Go to FILES.....MEMBERS FOLDERS....BARK SPLITTING SYNDROME and the pics are in
there.
>If anyone has seen this before, has it, or knows what it is, we'd appreciate
hearing from you.
------
I had it so I have seen it. It happened on 1996 in consequence of a
sudden frost. All the secondary branches were damaged -exactly as shown
in the pics- and after a few months they desiccated. I had to
drastically prune them.
Antonio
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<pre>Roger and others,
I have just come back 'on air' after having an upgrade on the computer and
was interested to see the suggestion
that the bark splitting syndrome may be caused by some soil borne disease
from infected wood buried below ground.
At least one of the two affected trees to which I have referred in past
postings was, in fact, close to an old forest red gum stump that I unearthed
during the ripping process prior to planting.
Although the former dairy farm land was cleared almost 100 years ago and
cropped regularly over those years I suspect the cultivation never went as
deep as the bulldozer which prepared the rows prior to planting.
I am drawn more to the theories which suggest individual plant disease than
some environmental factors because 2 out of 2000 trees seem too isolated to
be the result of hail, sunburn, soil deficiency or toxicity, even some
haphazard application of herbicide.
I am grateful to all those who have contributed some insight and theories
into what appears to be a fairly isolated problem for every suggestion
promotes more careful observation and accumulation of knowledge.
Incidentally, I have sent off a batch of leaves for analysis to see what
deficiencies or excesses exist.

Alan Watt, Tanja Olives
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Farquhar [mailto:rogfarlandsc@ozemail.com.au]
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 6:40 PM
To: OliveOil@egroups.com
Subject: [OliveOil] re: bark splitting syndrome


Your pics look similar to rhizoctonia (spelling a bit unsure) or other
similar soil borne diseases that are happy in poorly drained soils, or
perhaps in some infected wood buried below ground. If your ground has
been recently cleared there may still be old roots, stumps, this is
where the pathogens love to hang out.

What happens above ground to a great extent reflects what is happening
below ground. Maybe the roots are being attacked by a disease, or burnt
by acidity, or monstered by some excessive toxin eg sodium or manganese.
Or just suffering from excesive magnesium.

The only way to get a qualified opinion (can"t stress enough the
importance of qualified, not just some blow-in) is to use a , for Oz, a
NATA registered lab to do a) soil test b) leaf test c) soil pathogen test.

Sounds expensive but I like the German saying, something like "I'm so
poor I only can afford the best. Only the rich can experiment"

Roger Farquhar

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<pre>Further to Alans message 3288 the group of red gums eg eucalyptus
camaldulensis (river red), tereticornis (forest red), blakelyi
(blakely's red) amongst others have been shown to be the carriers of a
form of meningitis with some recorded deaths especially amongst children.

Roger Farquhar

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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