Mine died last year after a brief 20 year existence. There were no signs of trauma. It just gave up the ghost. The stump-grinder dude said he's seen an unusually high number of weeping cherry failures over the last year. (Northeast Ohio) Has anybody else heard this? And why?

I have a mature plum tree that has faithfully provided an abundance of fruit (mostly for the squirrels:mad:) for as long as I have lived here - 15 years. It has even survived being split in two when an oak fell on it during a hurricane back in 2003. Accept for a little light pruning, it pretty much does its own thing. I knew some thing was up last year when one of its main branch trunks had its leaves brown on the tree as opposed to change color and fall to the ground. Of the three main truck lines, one is now dead. The others are fine with healthy leaves but no signs of fruit. At the base of the dead trunk line, there are new shoots (feeders if you will) that are growing. My question is, do I leave it be so as to not cause it any more stress by trimming off the dead section? Or do I call this years crop a wash and prune and give it the rest of the season to rebuild itself? I'll try to post a picture or two once the sun has switched sides and I can get one that doesn't have so much glare.