Trying to figure out if I am overwatering, underwatering, dealing with a disease, or just not good at trees.

I am on the east side of DFW. Tree is a red oak, a little over one year old.

Everything seemed ok until about 4 days ago when it started turning.

Looks like oak wilt to me. I hope I'm wrong...

My best guess right now is bacterial leaf scorch but I think it is too spread to do the advice and prune all the branches.

Was hoping some one a better outlook of "just water more/less".

Sorry that's happening to you. You may want to post on Outdoors forum.

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Looks like oak wilt to me. I hope I'm wrong...

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You are. IMO it's just hot as Hades right now & your new tree is struggling & trying to cope. Its root system is not fully developed yet which compounds the problem. I have a 20 year old Shumard Oak in my yard & like clockwork in summer it begins to drop leaves & brown a bit. This is a natural defense of the tree to prevent water loss through transpiration in the leaves.

Keep up a regular watering schedule & it'll be fine.

Also, remove the stakes from all your trees this fall. The tree will be rooted in enough & keeping them does more harm than good.

I choose oak wilt over bacterial leaf scorch and regular leaf scorch (stress) for several reasons: rapid speed of appearance/spread, lack of a yellow margin bwt the healthy and brown sections of the leafs, and lack of leaf curling at the tips. However, none of these are definitive. If it is wilt, it should consume the entire tree this season.

I just noticed the grass around the base of the tree appears to be dead. Did someone spray herbicide around the base of the tree recently? If so, that could be a potential explanation.

Agree. Trees don't like roundup!

Can't help your situation but here's mine should something similar occur.

We planted a Shumard Red Oak a few years. Second summer in yard comes along and I noticed the leaves suddenly yellowing. Within a week they were all brown and fell off.

The likely culprit was that my wife had watered the tree and I watered it again the next day (didn't know she had watered the day before). Then we had some storms. All in a 3 or 4 day period. Immediately after is when the leaves changed and dropped.

They didn't come back until the spring so we missed that fall's short window of red foliage. It was perfectly fine the next spring though and leaves bloomed with the rest of the stuff.

All of that to say if they drop this year, wait until the spring to see if they return. Then you don't inadvertently remove an otherwise healthy tree that went through a rough spell.

Why is everything around your tree yellow grass?

Someone spray that area with something? Some sort of a treatment appears to have been made in that area.

dudeabides said:

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I choose oak wilt over bacterial leaf scorch and regular leaf scorch (stress) for several reasons: rapid speed of appearance/spread, lack of a yellow margin bwt the healthy and brown sections of the leafs, and lack of leaf curling at the tips. However, none of these are definitive. If it is wilt, it should consume the entire tree this season.

I just noticed the grass around the base of the tree appears to be dead. Did someone spray herbicide around the base of the tree recently? If so, that could be a potential explanation.

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Yes, I was focused on the leaves and missed that. I asked the wife and she told me it was easier to spray than to pull the grass up. I asked her not to do that again.

As others have said, give it until next spring. I had a red oak I planted one fall, the next summer late in the season it all of a sudden looked similar to your tree, lost most of its leaves before fall. I was afraid it wasnt goin got make it, but by next spring all growth came back out and the tree was fine. Just heat stressed that first summer.

But, also as others caught, the roundup you sprayed on the root ball probably isn't helping anything.

looks like you roundup'd your tree.

To help your tree out I would recommend the following:
-cut the grass away
-mulch to the stakes but keep the root flare bare of mulch
-install a deep root watering system.

The DRWS basically come in two flavors:
Dig and place two 4" pvc pipes full of holes about 18-24" into the ground on either side of the tree about as far as the stakes.
-You can either get out there and water the trees deeply yourself or buy a bubbler set up that hooks up into your sprinkler system.

Source: just installed 44 taps for 22 trees in the backyard. Its been a long month.

I get one of those 2in augers for a cordless drill and drill about 10 holes in the yard around the drip line. backfill with fine mulch or compost mixed with organic fertilizer. Allows rain/sprinkler water to penetrate deeper to the roots, encouraging them to grow downward.