Learn More About Your Trees
Mission
My mission is to illustrate the roles trees play as indicators of environmental quality and the positive contributions they make in our lives. I want to provide a platform for educational opportunities regarding the significance of tree health and solutions to tree mortality in both scientific and cultural terms.
Vision
By gaining an understanding of how trees respond to environmental stresses and diseases, we will better appreciate our own vulnerabilities to environmental extremes. These insights into the interconnected nature of trees, people and other inhabitants of the ecosystem could be critical to maintaining a healthy and sustainable planet.
Values
The results of scientific research combined with thoughtful, well designed applications of that knowledge can enhance the state of our trees, woodlands and forests, particularly during an era when solutions are needed for complex environmental challenges.
SERVICES
The Tree Cemetery will provide a place for you to memorialize a tree (or trees) by describing the role they played in your life, what they looked like, and other details that will personalize your experience in the life of the tree. The tree will be loaded onto The Cemetery Map with a headstone and allow others to access the Cemetery Map and see the impact that trees have on the lives of people.
This section will be an educational domain containing journal articles, factsheets, reviews, diagnostic guides, and other media describing how and why trees become diseased and die. One audience for this section will be arborists and natural resource managers needing technical information about pests and pathogens and how to manage them. There will also be resources for homeowners to devise a course of action when their trees develop problems in need of solutions.
Proper diagnosis of the tree disease is the first, and often most critical, step in solving a tree health problem. I am able to provide preliminary diagnostic support for anyone needing advice on how to deal with a tree in trouble. I am available for hire for speaking engagements as well.
who am i?
I am a forest and shade tree pathologist, trained at West Virginia University for my Master’s Degree and Virginia Tech for my Ph.D. During my 42 year career as a faculty member at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX, I interacted with thousands of people concerning tree health issues. I taught undergraduate and graduate students about tree diseases, and researched solutions for some of the most important tree diseases in Texas such as oak wilt, hypoxylon canker, pitch canker of Virginia pine Christmas trees, oak decline, sudden oak death, citrus greening and many others. I have also analyzed the influence of stresses such as drought, freeze damage, and other environmental stresses on the long-term health of trees. Having now retired, I would like to use those experiences to assist anyone trying to understand why trees die and how they may be saved (Resources and Consulting Services). If a tree died unexpectedly or in spite of efforts to save it, then I am providing a place to memorialize that tree through The Texas Tree Cemetery.
Dr. David Appel, Proprietor
The cemetery Map
The Cemetery Map showcases trees that have died in Texas, their known cause of death, location and more. This map is a representation of tree mortality throughout the state and gives us a bigger understanding of common diseases occurring throughout certain areas.