Question:
We recently experienced several days of flooding. What will happen to the trees in the yard?Answer:
Flooding during the growing season is typically more harmful to trees than flooding during dormant periods. And, the longer trees are exposed to flooding, the greater the potential for injury. Short periods of flooding during the growing season can be tolerated by most trees, but if flooding is recurrent or uninterrupted and keeps soils saturated, serious damage to trees may occur.
Flood stressed trees exhibit a wide range of symptoms including leaf chlorosis (yellowing), defoliation, reduced leaf size and shoot growth, epicormic sprouting (sprouts along the stem or trunk), and crown dieback. Early fall coloration and leaf drop often occur and large seed crops may appear on stressed trees in the following growing season. These symptoms may progress into tree decline and death, reoccur for several years and then eventually disappear, or subside as early as the next year indicating rapid tree recovery.