Drought Brings Challenges to Trees and Arborists

By Rebecca Fater

In Roswell, Georgia, where a deep drought has parched the soil for the last two years, arborist Kevin Caldwell has noticed a disturbing trend: Pine beetles and spider mites are attacking the region's trees about a month and a half ahead of schedule. Ambrosia beetles are descending on drought-stricken trees at an alarming rate. The number of calls for tree removals are way up.

Yet, business overall at Caldwell Tree Care is down about 27 percent from last year.
"The irony to me is that there hasn't been a more critical time to hire arborists than now," laments Caldwell, on a June day where temperatures peaked at 94 degrees. "We have more pest, insect and tree problems probably than I've ever seen in my career. But consumers are tightening their budgets. The bad part about it is, it's a lose-lose for the businesses, and it's a lose-lose for the clients."

The Southeast is no stranger to drought. The rains tend to dry up to this severity every 40 years or so, according to historical weather data, testing the tenacity of all plant life. Most local arborists, who will tell you they have lived through at least one such dusty event in their careers, have seen enough to trust that at some point, the rain does come.

Yet experts say the end isn't in sight yet. The drought officially took hold of the region in March 2006, which means plants and trees are currently enduring a third growing season with too little water. That has major impacts on trees and other vegetation, particularly those without well-developed root systems that cannot reach deeper into the earth for what little water is available, explains climatologist David Stooksbury, professor of engineering and atmospheric sciences in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia.

He measures the severity of the drought not according to inches of rain that fall, but by actual soil moisture levels - an indicator that more accurately reflects the amount of moisture available to vegetation. The region has received approximately 25 inches of rain annually during the drought, he said, but that fact can be deceiving: for an area accustomed to an average of 50 inches per year - 100 in the mountains - it's not nearly enough.

Visually, the landscape in Georgia and the Carolinas, as well as Alabama and Tennessee, is also deceiving. The small amount of rain that has fallen has been enough to green up the plants, shrubs and most trees.

"People's image of drought is Clint Eastwood walking down a dusty road with the tumbleweed rolling by and maybe a dead cow over to the side," Stooksbury says. "But that's not what the drought is going to look like in the Southeast, even extreme drought. The trees are still green. I think that has misled folks."

That misconception, cautions Caldwell, compounds the problem for trees: many people don't realize they need extra help. The average homeowner, for example, probably has not noticed that a certain species of evergreen tree called Leyland cypress - used prolifically in landscaping - is increasingly disease-ridden due to drought, he notes. Pests and disease tend to attack trees and other plants during drought due to the already-stressed condition of the vegetation. In addition, towns' outdoor water bans are discouraging or forbidding the regular watering of plants and trees, making the problem worse, he adds. It all adds up to many more calls to cut down and haul away dead trees.

"When someone calls us now, they're calling us in a panic and it's too late," Caldwell says. "We're looking at removal rather than treatment."

An arborist can't exactly count on return business with removals. It's a problem familiar to Schneider Tree Care in Taylors, South Carolina, where the number of removal jobs has also increased. Even more frustrating, says Brandon Brown, president and plant health care supervisor for Schneider, is the fact that most South Carolina towns have not yet resorted to water bans - but nervous residents are still refraining from watering their trees and plants.

"We have had a lot more removals, unfortunately," Brown says. "I would rather get out there and take care of those trees. But if people don't water them, it's kind of a moot point."

In drought conditions, trees aren't the only ones that need special attention. Supervisors at Schneider are emphasizing the importance of hydration to their workers.

"Not only is it affecting the trees, it's affecting our workers in the trees," explains Brown. "In our safety meetings we're trying to reinforce drinking plenty of water. We're also telling workers to take more breaks. We understand the job is going to take a little longer."

Last year, a Schneider employee failed to notice the warning signs until too late. It wasn't until he stopped sweating and began feeling lightheaded that he realized he was dangerously dehydrated.
"We had to get him down and give him water slowly," Brown recalls.

Through recent radio advertising, Schneider Tree Care is trying to impress upon customers the importance of plant health care. In keeping with that theme, workers are depending regularly on the use of mycorrhizae treatments that allow the tree to take up what water and nutrients are in the soil more easily.

"It makes the tree more efficient," says Brown.

But arborists can control only so much. The hard clay soil in South Carolina, combined with the few, short downpours and wind storms that do occur, causes many trees with shortened root systems to topple.

"Trees are just uprooting and falling over," Brown says. "For two of the last three weekends, we've been taking trees off houses."

Schneider Tree Care is not the only company trying to combat the effects of drought through plant health care education. Arborguard Tree Specialists in Avondale Estates, Georgia, is working hard to spread the word about its newest answer to drought: an injectable drought-therapy mix made of liquefied black sea kelp from the Texas-Mexico border. The organic mix is supposed to increase the soil's water-holding capacity by as much as 200 percent, according to Diane Lasek, marketing director for Arborguard.

Officially called Arborgrow Eco-Friendly Drought Survival Prescription, the solution is the result of 20 years of research from a group of scientists with whom Arborguard's president, Spence Rosenfeld, has collaborated for years.

"We inject this material in, and the roots never dry out. With the roots staying wet, (the trees) have more of a chance of surviving," she says.

As for customers' reaction to this two-year-old product?

"It's been really good," insists Lasek, adding that business is actually up compared to past years. "If their trees aren't dead, they're happy. That's about all they want to know."

The treatment costs roughly $295 to inject the perimeter of a tree, but many customers are willing to pay.

"People say, 'I want to check this out, because I really love my tree in the front yard and I don't want to lose it,'" she says. "We would love the drought to end tomorrow so we could sell other products. But if it's not going to happen, we all have to be proactive in educating the public."

Paul Bagley, president of Downey Trees, Inc. in Cumming, Georgia, has also noticed current and new clients making an effort to be proactive. He says business is up, due to preventative treatments that customers have requested. His clients are relying on a less high tech approach to drought treatment: he has sold more mulch this year than ever before.

"If you wet the ground outside and you have the hot sunshine on it, it dries," he says. "If you put mulch on it, it won't dry as quickly."

Whatever their strategies, property owners and tree care businesses should prepare to battle drought conditions for some time longer, predicts Stooksbury.

"Normally, once we get into summertime, it's very difficult to break a drought," he notes. "Moisture loss from soils due to evaporation and plant use is usually greater than rainfall in a normal season."
The one caveat is the tropical season in late summer and fall, which provides some hope that tropical storms and hurricanes - which bring problems of their own - could provide enough water to save the region from even more crippling drought.

"If I was making business decisions, I would plan that the drought would last through the remainder of this year," he warns.

When the soaking rains finally do come, Caldwell expects that the toll from the drought - made worse by the current economic slump - will eventually bring more customer calls than he knows what to do with.
"People who might consider our work discretionary are not calling right now," he says. "I don't think the insect problems are going to go away with the rain. And I think the backlash is going to be more dead trees in the Atlanta area."