Laurel Wilt Is Here — What Every Homeowner Needs To Know

By Tony Padgett, ISA Certified Arborist, Panorama Tree Care

If you have a redbay, avocado, camphor or sassafras tree on your property, walk out and look at it this week. Laurel wilt disease has been confirmed in Hillsborough County, and I am seeing it move fast along the preserve edges in Brandon and FishHawk.

The first sign is a single branch that suddenly wilts and turns reddish brown while the leaves stay attached. Healthy trees do not drop leaves that way. Within a few weeks, the wilt spreads through the whole crown. If you peel back a small piece of bark on an affected limb, you will see dark streaks running through the sapwood. That streaking is the fungus, and there is no cure once it reaches the trunk.

The disease is spread by a beetle the size of a sesame seed called the redbay ambrosia beetle. It bores into the wood, carries the fungus with it, and the tree dies from the inside. One infected redbay along a preserve line can seed a whole neighborhood because the beetles fly and the wood gets moved.

The single most important thing a homeowner can do is stop moving firewood. If a laurel-family tree comes down on your lot, do not haul it to a friend’s fire pit and do not stack it by the fence for next winter. The beetles keep living in cut wood for months. Chip it on-site to pieces smaller than 1 inch, or bag and dispose of it with regular yard waste so the county handles it. Burning it where it fell is fine. Burning it 3 miles away is how the disease jumps a neighborhood.

For avocado trees, which many FishHawk families planted for the fruit, a preventive trunk injection of propiconazole gives about a year of protection and is worth considering if your tree is still healthy. It does nothing once symptoms appear.

If you see wilting redbays along the trails behind Brandon or near the FishHawk preserves, report it to the Florida Forest Service. Early reports slow the spread.

Source: www.panoramatreeservice.com/laurel-wilt-tampa-hillsborough-county-trees/.

Tony Padgett is an ISA Certified Arborist and owner of Panorama Tree Care, his certifications and field expertise set the tone for a team dedicated to professionalism, ongoing training, and genuine customer care. Padgett’s active ISA Certified Arborist credentials (FL-9569A, ANAB-accredited under ISO/IEC 17024) and the ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (TRAQ).