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Extension > Garden > Diagnose a problem > What's wrong with my plant? > Deciduous Trees > Poplar > Liquid seeping from wounds on branches/trunk

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Poplar > Trunk/Branches > Liquid from wounds on branches/trunk

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  • Image: Wetwood or bacterial slime flux 1
  • Image: Wetwood or bacterial slime flux 2

Wetwood or bacterial slime flux
Several species of bacteria

  • Fluid may ooze or bleed out of openings in the bark and may have a yeast-like odor
  • Streaks/columns of water-soaked bark discoloration on the trunk or branches that is gray to yellow-brown when dry and black to brown when wet
  • Discoloration commonly starts at bark cracks, wounds, or branch unions
  • Avoid wounding the tree
  • Protect the tree from other stresses, especially soil compaction from vehicles or pedestrians
  • More information on wetwood
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  • Image: Poplar and willow borer 1
  • Image: Poplar and willow borer 2
  • Image: Poplar and willow borer 3

Poplar and willow borer
Cryptorhynchus lapathi

  • Frass pushed out of openings in wood; sap seeps from openings
  • Trunks become crooked and misshapened with openings in bark
  • Random sucker growth along deformed
  • Damage most common on young trees and willow species; quaking aspen are not affected
  • Larvae are C-shaped, cream-colored and approx. ¼ inch long
  • More information on Poplar and willow borer
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  • Image: Poplar borer 1
  • Image: Poplar borer 2
  • Image: Poplar borer 3

Poplar borer
Saperda calcarata

  • Brown stain streak below holes formed by longhorned beetle under bark
  • Holes in bark filled with stringy sawdust or at base of tree
    below holes
  • Fully-grown larvae up to 1 1/2 inch long; creamy-white and legless
  • More information on Poplar borer

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