Yellow Leaves On
River Birch During Hot And Dry Weather

The most common reason for yellowing leaves on a young birch is heat and water stress. The leaves turn completely yellow and drop to the ground. This is a natural reaction of the tree to help reduce stress in the summer. The tree simply does not have enough of a root system to support all of the foliage on the tree so the natural reaction of the tree is to drop some of the foliage. The only thing that you can do is to make sure that your young river birch trees have sufficient soil moisture during the hot part of the year.

The other reason you could have yellowing leaves on your birch tree is a problem called chlorosis. This is a mineral difficiency in iron. The tree does not take up enough iron or the soil in the area is too alkaline for iron to be available to the tree. Leaves on the tree turn yellow with green veins. We suggest that you bring a sample of your tree (a small branch that has both yellowing leaves and green leaves) into the nursery for us to give you an exact diagnosis. The treatment for this is Iron Chlorosis Tree Medicine and should clear up the problem in a couple of weeks.