Hello,

I would like to address a question concerning the Japanese maple I own. I hale just noticed significant dryness on one of the thicker stems of my maple (pictures attached). Should I worry about this or is it just something that will come to pass? Judging by its extent, I would assume it's quite old. In case it's somwthing that should not happen, is there a way to heal the stem? I also attached pictures of the newer branches, that show a clean, bright red colour. I have the maple for two years now (in case this information is of relevance to the issue).

Two questions:

Where is this tree located?

What direction does the dried sides of the branches face?

DaisyI said:

Two questions:

Where is this tree located?
I forgot to mention. I live the central part of Romania, in a temperate climate. However, we have quite sunny summers (July and August display temperatures of 30-35C in shade) whereas previous winters were rather colder autumns (roughly -5 to -10 C, although in January 2019 I recall having a couple of days at -25C), with very little snow (if I were to add up the entire amount of snowfall in December-March, it would be about 2-3 days continuously).

What direction does the dried sides of the branches face?

Most of the dried part faces the sun during summer time...I noticed a portion that faces the other side, on a different branch, but it's like 1/3 of the extent on the stem i added in the pictures.

I think your little tree is suffering from sunscald. It happens in winter, usually on the south side of the tree. Here is an article from Washington State University that can explain it better than I can.

http://pubs.cahnrs.wsu.edu/pub...