Dead tree....

[Valv]

All of a sudden one of my maples died. It was doind fine this spring, all leaves were nice, then all of a sudden....it's dead ?

I didn't see anything suspicious on it, right now there are many small little grren bugs crawling.

Does anybody know what could have been ? I don't think it's contagious since other maples even younger do not have any problem.

[Powerstroke]

Normally in this situation the first thing to suspenct would be girdling root, but to take the whole tree at once is a bit suspicious. An easy way to check is to take a shovel and carefully dig around the base of the tree. Excavate in the first 12" around the trunk and look for a root that is wrapped around the main truck of the tree. It would be "choking" the rest of the tree and not allowing nutrients to flow freely between the roots and the rest of the tree.