A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Plant pests and problems Tx.dead zone

I live north of Dallas. There is an area in my yard where every tree or shrub
I plant, dies. The plants die in a radial pattern around this area.
The plants take as much as 3-4 years to die, but show stress quicker.
Plan to do soil tests, but not sure what to look for.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Mike

are you close to an open field? I'm close to an open field and they farmed here and I have a spot too where everything died, I finally got some grass to grow there after 8 years. I figure some farm chemical got spilled there

I think first thing to do is try to uncover the history of your property. You don't say how large the affected area is, but if the pattern of plant death is structured (i.e., radial) it might be that something did leach into the soil. Thus, knowing what was there before might give you a clue as to what that something was. I don't really know anything about the half life of toxic chemicals, but it seems reasonable to me that you'd need to know more than just the last couple of years. (Remember Love Canal?) Sometimes counties or municipalities maintain property (tax) records on line that you could saerch. Failing that, you might have to search records (deeds) at the court house.

Additionally, the symptoms of stress, especially the earliest symptoms, may indicate what sort of toxicity you are dealing with (assuming it is toxicity & given the pattern if it's not, I'd be curious to know what it is). It may be that something in the soil is literally mutating genes and their expression. That's why the early symptoms are the best clues. Later symptoms could be directly related to the cause, or could be related to the plants' response to the real cause.

Does everything that you plant exhibit the same early symptoms? If so, then again this sounds to me like a toxin in the soil that's affecting some very basic (i.e., common to all higher plants) genetic pathway.

Once you can more or less answer these questions, I think the next step would be contacting your county extension agent.

Good luck!

Marica

Mike-- Here's an alternative hypothesis. Let's assume that the soil itself is healthy-- no toxins, plenty of organic matter and so forth. Plants get water from 1) rain soaking DOWN into the soil due to gravity and 2) the water table, water raising UP (through good soil) due to capillary action. What if something literally cuts off that upward flow? That something could be anything (although we're also assuming it's man-made or man-put there because of the symmetry). If your property is in a subdivision, no matter how affluent, I still wouldn't put it past the developer and his various crews to have just buried something as the site was being graded. Concrete base of a round farm tank? Circular gravel driveway? Who knows-- anyting that prohibits organic matter below from coming into contact with organic matter above. Point is that if there is something not organic, it will stop the flow of water. After the rain water has been taken up by the plants or evaporated, the plants will stress. Next rain they recover, but there's only so long this can go on.

So again, knowing the history may help.

Marica

that's a good idea too and I'd still have the soil test done

is it a big spot? Mine was only a small spot a laundry basket would have covered it

Thanks for the replies. The area is about 50ft across.
I bought the land 25 years ago. It had been open farm land
for at least 25 years prior to that. No sign that there was a home
site, or any other structure on it. Will post the results of the
soil tests.
Thanks,
Mike

if it was farm land sounds like a chemical spill to me, maybe an area where they mixed and loaded

Start over beginning with the soil.