What Causes this Ring of Dead Grass Around a Tree?

I thought it was either a butter nut or walnut, but the leafs don’t match.
fyi, I got an app (Leaf Snap) for identification and I just ran it... I have it because I do have a few nut trees on my property, it’s handy app.

and these trees I don’t have a problem, the squirrels pretty much clean up the nuts that fell.

Anyways, attached below is a picture of the leaf I took,... It from the fagaceae family. Which is a Beech or oak. So you were right, it is a nut tree. The bark didn’t look like either,... maybe a variety of an oak.

The tree is a young tree, and it’s not really producing... but I’ll look into that. And remove all the leafs when they drop this fall.

Thanks...

picture I took,... you have to put it agains a white back ground.

this is the results.

Appears to be an English Oak.

Back in the 60's my dad transplanted a red oak (pointed lobes on leaves) from his cottage to his city property. Grass has never grown under that tree.

it’s stands out, and it’s just an aesthetic issue. I don’t know how long that tree will be there, I was thinkIng of putting a telescope and small building there before I retire, it’s on a small knoll. But I hate to cut down a nice tree,

I’m thinking it may be grubs, or Rixters post that it may be allelopathic chemicals.

it just strange that it’s a ring, somewhat beyond the shade. That’s why it may be grubs,...some tastey plant material at the roots end? I do have a lot of robins there.

and going off the topic more,... this has nothing to do with the ground, but I notice there are an unusually high number of monarch butterfly’s there this year, as well as dragonfly’s. Which is a good thing.

I'm pretty sure that's a White Oak.

It could be,... the leaf snap app I used, gave a couple of possibilities.

I know it’s was planted, the area in NorthEast Wisconsin the species is normally Red Oak, with white oak normally growth is normally is more south southwestern Wisconsin.

These are white oak leaves

And,.................. red........... versus ............white......... oak leaves

I have an app on my phone called "Flora Incognita" which asks for pictures of the leaf the whole tree the fruit and the bark: I'm pretty sure it would identify your tree.

Thanks,... on my earlier post I used Leaf Snap, which gives the family name, and then the type of Genus, with the various categories...

The English Oak leaves were also similar.... and the branches are somewhat what I’d call narily ^{I don’t think that word exists}... with living by Lake Michigan the winds that blow off of it the branches are I believe windswept.

"The nuts are green about the size and color of tennis balls."

Even with the husks still green, I've never seen a black walnut even close to the size of a tennis ball, unless you mean table tennis. In the ones I've seen, the nut with husk is a bit larger than the size of a table tennis ball. The nut itself is considerably smaller, around an inch in diameter, and of course is nearly black in color.

Back in my early high school days, I used to gather black walnuts for the cash - $1 a "gunny sack", husks removed. Once, I had a bunch that weren't dry enough to husk easily, so I put them up on a corrugated aluminum roof to dry. When I went to get them off the roof, I discovered that the chemicals of the husks had etched the aluminum significantly; all the way through the aluminum in a few places. Fortunately, the holes were all outside the walls...

So yes, those chemicals could easily affect anything growing under, or even near the tree.

I was thinking he meant the size of ping pong balls...

if your gathering black walnuts, you biggest completion are the squirrels... I did release the reaction of the chemicals,... probably a lower pH.

when we pick wall nuts that weren’t ready, we put them by the bulk milk tanks compressors... (Grew up on a dairy farm) and we felt the warm air From the compressor would help, didn’t realize the reaction that had.

A lot of typos... let me make corrections...

“The biggest competition are the squirrels, I didn’t realize the reaction of the chemicals”

Looks like somebody has over fertilized around the tree...

I was thinking the same,...or the opposite. When I purchased the property a few years ago, the previous owner took really good care of the lawn with fertilizer and not a weed in sight with the lawn having a healthy growth of grass. I don’t believe there was that ring around the tree.

Since I owned it, I never fertilized or weeded, because the lawn is 5 acres, but I was thinking maybe a lack of fertilizer was causing it.

Also when I mowed, I did have the mower set at 1”. Just due that I traveled a lot, especially last year, I was gone for over 6 weeks it never got mowed, but we had a drought in the area,... and nothing really did much growing.

I did adjust the more to cut at the 2”, and I just did that.

Maybe he put fertilizer spikes around the tree....could be some sort of weird grub formation...Maybe somebody was training their horse there while you were away, looks like a lunging circle ....

That what my dad said,.., grubs. I’ll try that first.

no, we weren’t lung lining, or breaking any horses... lately.

You seem to have planted your tree right on home plate....

Well, I did have some softball and kickball games on the west side of the property,...

these are early pictures...

here’s an old picture of right field look towards first base...

then I found that they did the this problem also. It shows it in the picture.

It almost looks like a shade pattern, maybe the grass type is not shade tolerant...

Possible,... but it really doesn’t throw much shade... but then again... on the south side,... the ring isn’t there... so maybe... but the other trees aren’t that way,... I have willows, there’s pines by the house, and they are rather bare under the tree.

I could pick up some Timothy grass seed, mixed with alfalfa. I kNow the root system on the alfalfa is pretty deep. Try that... or maybe look for a grass seed that hardy in Shade.

someone just overfilled their gas tank and went around the tree too fast, throwing a sheet of gas over the grass?

As a wee pup I remember my Grand dad telling me that when you water a tree you water at the edge of the leaves as that is where all the "growing roots are" to get good fruit and up home water is very precious. His fruit trees - one peach that yielded maybe a peach a year, an apricot that was brilliant and a nectarine that was iffy.
Of forgotten until studying root growth, in/under, foundations/pavements/slabs etc.

Anyway long story short - they are the roots that suck the nutrients and water from the soil depleting the area above them killing most growth in that area.
Try liquid manure (cattle were penny a pound up home) around the ring or ammonium nitrate fairly heavily watered in. Be careful if you go that way because the reason AN is so good at cooling beers is why, if applied wrong, it "burns/freezes" vegetation.

We had an orchard also, cherries and apples. On the cherry trees, Those were called leader roots, When you worked the orchard with a disc, had to be careful not to go too deep and cut the leader roots.

If this was once a farm land,it could possibly be where hydraulic oil was spilled,or a bag of fertilizer broke..too much fertilizer will kill all plants.

Another cause could be grubs under the soil,or nematodes.

Most nematodes can be chemically killed,but there are certain nematodes that cannot be eliminated

I would send a soil sample to the local ag agent, it is usually free.

They will usually send a sample kit with directions on how to get a proper sample.

Have the ag agent come to the site and look at it,he may be able to give you an instant diagnosis.

House was built in the 50’s. So I would say it was taken out of production as farm land.

last spring, I was putting in a footing for a walk in planter, (which I probably won’t get done until next year). I was digging out the foundation about 150 yards from that... I did find a grub. I thought it may be an army worm, but it was a grub. Which is pretty normal.

The rings are likely a result of mycorrhizal fungus. The fungus is in symbiosis with the tree yet produces factors which harms the grass.

Some other mycorrhizal fungi produce growth factors which actually cause the grass to grow very lush in a similar circle.

The type of fungus (and therefor the effects on other plants) depends heavily on the species of tree with which is in symbiosis.

Things that may help include aerating the soil, adopting a watering regime of heavily watering at periods sufficient to allow should to dry in between (if possible), and overseeing with varied grass strains in hopes something resistant takes root.

I mentioned earlier about a finding a more ‘robust’ type of grass. I’ll see about aerating it also.

Aerating will probably help. Also, watering with a dilute surfactant like a little dish detergent in a lot of water, may also help depending on the species of fungus.

Avoid using antifungal treatment if you want to keep the tree healthy.

Dish detergent is somewhat a fertilizer.

With the suggestions I receive so far, I’ll have to put together program regiment, and take it a step by step basis.

thanks,

My understanding is that trees have a drip ring i.e. the area where water coming off the leaves eventually hits the ground. The trees put out roots just below the surface of this area so as to collect the water and in this case it looks as the though the tree is getting all the water. In my garden we have a site where we believe there was a tree long before we moved in because every year we get a ring of mushrooms which I suspect are growing from the remains of the drip ring surface roots.

Interesting, I wonder if the soil type has anything to do with it, it is a very heavy clay with a somewhat sandy loam.

where the roots stay to the surface, maybe? And it is on top of a knoll where the water drains away.

when it rains, the water stay near the surface, and it does satiate the soil, be really poor perk.

Some dead spots,not rings,are caused by dog poo.

The poo attracts June Bugs,a type of beetle.

The beetle lays eggs in the ground which turn into grubs which eat the grass roots.

The grubs also attract moles,who do not eat the roots,they eat the poo.

A whole food chain is started by the poo.

A friend of mine did not believe it,so I told him to put a golf tee beside every poo pile in his yard and wait.

His patience was rewarded in the summer.

All of the dead spots had a golf tee beside them.

He sprayed for the grubs,and no problems since.

He said he had told a lawn specialist about my theory,and he poo-poo-ed the idea(pardon the pun),so I guess this has not been fully studied yet.

Here is a link to eliminating the grubs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzYyZBBZRyw

nice food chain presentation. I figured I had grubs because in the spring, there were a lot of robins on the lawn,... followed by a Some crows.

Going off topic...

one other vermin that the grubs attract is skunks.

last spring I put in a driveway With a culvert, I later added a flair to the culvert. And right after I installed the flair on nine side, the next day, I was going to finish it off, and I had these foot prints on the flair.

i have have a corn field right next, I’m thinking it may be coon, but skunks also love grubs.

picture seems to have lost some resolution... it’s hard to see the tracks. I’ll, see if I can find the original.

you said the soil was clay, which means not much nutrients. i would suggest the tree is competing for the water and nutrients. since it is in the middle of nowhere, i would say watering is not an option. but fertilizing is. a high nitrogen fertilizer is what grass loves. dont waste your money on the "scotts turf builder" type products. go to a feed store and buy a bag of urea (46-0-0). will be 46% nitrogen so use it sparingly. put it down at about half the rate (or even 1/3rd) you would with any other commercial fertilizer. this would be done in the spring and mid summer. if you really want to fix the issue with the grass that is around it, in the fall, put down a product we call "triple super phosphate" which is 46% phosphate (0-46-0). at same rate as urea. dont be concerned with potash as clay soils tend to be rich in this chemical (potassium carbonate). the phosphate will build up the grass roots over the winter months and give the grass more sites to grab the available nutrients as well as moisture. my guess is that you have a bluegrass mix (mostly bluegrass) which is susceptible to drought conditions. these days they have some very good fescue grasses that have a thin blade that home owners desire. these grasses are drought and disease resistant and i would suggest planting that around the tree. but you will have to scuff up the dead grass that is there so the seed will penetrate to the ground. slot seeders are the best, but maybe try the urea first. just remember to use somewhat sparingly i have had some homeowners apply and really like the results, thinking more will be even better and then burn their lawn by applying too much. Its not super critical, but just dont spread like you would the other stuff as you will see on their packaging that the first number will be at least half of the urea. they make a urea with a coating on it to give it a slow release, but you are going to pay twice the price or more. for standard urea I paid $16 for 50# the last time i bought some this spring.

I was thinking of taking some soil samples in the affected and surrounding and take it to the county extension office.

It only a couple of bucks, then I’ll know for sure.

or, It’s getting to the point of to just cut the damn tree down.

Woodsman woodsman spare that tree. It's far more valuable than a few square yards of grass.

I’ll take that in consideration,... let’s be clear here, It’s not a forest, it’s a lawn...

Throw your coffee rounds, a few crushed eggshells... some mellon rinds and a fish head under that tree.. then wait until next year.

Fish head optional;)

Do I also have to do some type of witch doctor dance ritual along with that?

It would help. It will bring worms up and the pounding beats are a plant favorite.

Great I finally get to use this,...

and the wife questioned why I got this... that I’ll never use it...

Trees typically have a ring of feeder roots at a radius about that of the outline of the tree canopy. These draw water which tends to drip at the edge of the canopy. I suspect that the feeder roots are depleting soil moisture below the optimum for the grass. You may want to patch with a grass variety sited for a slightly more arid climate and add a tad extra fertilizer to make up for the feeder roots depletion of nutrients.

Could be love:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO8WDMEvup8

Show your county extension agent. He has probably seen this. He might even test it for you.
If you're off grid, water the ring, and only the ring with 1 in. of water. Wait 3 days. If no change, take an inside, ring, and outside, soil sample to an environmental lab. Have metals and biomass inventory done.

We had a naturalist that was our neighbor,

as far as the extension office, I have very little faith in them. This was from experience and what I’ve heard from others.

Sorry to hear about your extension office. I've only used ours a few times, and years ago, but they have always been helpful.

Our climates are so different that I won't attempt to repeat any solutions I've had, but I would suggest that you try several of the suggestions you've gotten here, with each trial in a different section of the circle, so you can tell which is more effective.

...and if you are anything like me, make a record of which sector got which treatment, 'cause I'd forget...

Then come back and let us know what worked and what didn't!

i agree, and already on it... as I mentioned earlier, I’ll take a measured approach as to not to over do it.

im going to begin watering it and fertilizing. It will be a while before I give an update for the results...

As far as extension agents... It changes... usually we get a new college graduate... that’s resembles Hank Kimball on green acres,... others times you get an academic Blowhard that has zero practical and is offended when challenged that’ll throw his academia in your face, ends up, the projects he worked on that’s supposed to last 20-25 years, fails within 3-5 years. And by that time, he already moved on.

For us, we at least recognize that and go our own way.

rarely we get a county extension agent that’s worth his salt, and when we do, he’s over worked because people recognize his competence.

we had a naturalist that lived down the road from us, his name was Roy Lukes he was a naturalist and he was really good, he loved his work and displayed real enthusiasm about it.