Stem disease on Pine

[Tom]

Let's talk about the swollen stems in these pictures.

[Tom]

One of many articles that will enlighten those interested in a discussion.
http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/Extension/bul903.htm

[Jeff]

I have noticed something that at least looks similar on some of the choke cherries around here.

[Tom]

Fusiform Rust is a real tree killer in the South.  I've not heard of anything like it anywhere else in the country.  I guess that there are some that are worse like Dutch Elm Disease, Chestnut blight and others of which I'm not familiar.

I've got fusiform rust in, I'm guessing, 30 percent of the volunteer slash in my plantation.  My plans are to remove of them.  I haven't done it yet because I'm hoping that some will be un-infected.  I need some of them to replace the hybrids that the Utility people ran over and killed.   I've already pruned some of the limbs last winter but can't do anything until the weather cools for fear of spreading the disease.  As I understand, I can take the tree down but can't prune it. Perhaps I could remove trees in the summer.

[Texas Ranger]

Tom, I think fusiform attacks new growth, only.  It releases spores in the spring.  So a winter prune would not effect any change in your stand.  Slash seems particularly affected by the fungus, and orchard produced seedlings tend to bring it with the planting.  Here in Texas there is very little wild stand infections, but a bunch of infection in stands planted in the 60's and 70's.

[Tom]

I was reading that the spores infect open wounds and it wasn't recommended to prune in June-August when the airborne spores were prolific.

I definitely want to do some limb pruning on some of the larger and healthier volunteer slash.  I need them to fill the holes where the utility company ran over the purchased trees.

You can sure tell that the fellows working with genetics have been doing their job.  I've not found a single one of the 4th generation "Super Slash" infected with the rust.  .......yet!

This land has been in plantation before and some of the trees are still in existence.  Those trees were planted in the 60's and 70's and are responsible for much of the seed that has created the volunteer in my patch.  It may be that logic you state could be prevalent here as well.

Growing pines on and in a Hardwood river-swamp makes it easy for the rust to propagate too.

What have you heard about the success in combating Fusiform Rust, Don?  Is it a disease that can be eradicated?

[Texas Ranger]

Tom, it is a fungal infestation, usually on new growth, and I believe has an alternate host.  Being at the house and not the office, I cannot give details for the moment, but will tomorrow.  Control is not to allow it in your stand to start with (certified seedlings from a "clean nursery".  Only control off the top of my head is to remove the infested stem.  This is not a real problem here in Texas, primarily (in my view) because we stopped planting slash 30 years ago.

Slash is off site in Texas, and we tend to plant loblolly, although there is a rise in Longleaf planting since the availability of containerized and improved seedlings.  Short leaf  occures through out east Texas, makes pretty tight grained wood, but is slow grower compared to lob.  Under the right conditions and proper site, loblolly can produce one half inch or better radial growth a year.  We like to hold it to below that for structural wood, and the fast growth for pulp.

[DanG]

I'd really like to weigh in on this discussion with some profound wisdom, but the fact is, I ain't got any. ???  Wisdom, that is. I got plenty of rust on the young pines on my place. :(
My expert Forester Brother-in-law, who reads here but won't say anything, says getting rid of all the oaks will reduce the incidence of rust. I'm not doing it because I'm not really trying to grow pines anyway.
I'm thinking that I might remove the few mature Slash pines I have so that any seedlings that come up in the future will be from the Loblolly and Longleaf trees that remain.

[Tom]

Cankers will block the flow in the xylem and eventually kill the limb containing the canker or the whole tree, in the case of a stem canker.  This is a stem canker that weakened the tree to the point that it snapped in a moderate wind.

[Texas Ranger]

Tom, fomes annouses is another fungus affecting pines, that is transmitted either through branch stubs are cut surfaces.  Cronartium has an alternate host, oak leaves.  I have a book,Insects and Diseases of Trees in the South, put out by the USDA Forest Service - Southeastern Area Forest Pest Management Group.

The singular comment on Cronartium that stands out is "Avoid planting highly susceptible species such as slash and loblolly pines in areas of known high rust incidence.  In these areas more resistant species such as longleaf or shortleaf pine should be planted.  Pruning infected branches will prevent stem infections in young plantations."

Actually it is classed as a "rust" rather than a fungus.  But still a fungus.

Fomes was a pine stem disease that we used to treat by sprinkling borax on a fresh stump to prevent the fomes from hitting and transferring to other pines through root grafts.  That may be the on you were thinking of on fresh cuts.

[SwampDonkey]

Tom:

We have a couple of rust diseases which infect 2 pines up here.

Jack pine blister rust whose alternate host is the sweet fern which gives the disease a second name (sweet fern blister rust obviously). It's more prevalent in Northern Ontario, I don't think its a concern here in NB. Sweetfern is an evergreen boreal, woody, shrub, not a true fern. Hey that'll be my next shrub to post for ID ;)

White Pine blister rust whose alternate host is the current and gooseberry family. Its a major concern in white pine here. It gurdles the stem and pich runs down from the wound. If the tree is mature and infected it produces a bumper crop of cones. The bark is darkened and shrunken at the infection and pitch steams down from the wound. Leaves turn yellow, then brown...then gone. Probably most you folks in the northeast or lake states are familiar with this also. I've heard of programs in Michigan to eradicate ribies (currents) but that's an impossible mission with its prolific seeding and underground root system.

[Corley5]

My Great Great Uncle Frank Vroman worked for the Michigan Dept of of Conservation after WWII and one of his duties was supervising prison crews who pulled goose berries in an attempt to control the spread of blister rust.  It didn't hurt anything even if it didn't help ;).  On occasion I notice an infected tree but not too often.  The prison crews also trimmed the red pine platations that were planted as part of the Detroit News reforestation program in the early thirties.  Other times he operated a D7 equipped with Rome disc and kept the firelines/section lines worked up to control the spread of possible fires.

[SwampDonkey]

Corley:

That's interesting to have a relative involved in the eradication program. I only heard about it from Norm Whitney, our tree pathology professor. I think he has a brother in southern Ontario that may have been involved in the program. Nothing that creates work is a bad thing, and if it helps a little bit its better than doing nothing in my mind.

cheers

[Tobacco Plug]

I have a book,Insects and Diseases of Trees in the South, put out by the USDA Forest Service - Southeastern Area Forest Pest Management Group.


Don, is that book available for sale online?

[Ron Scott]

I pulled many gooseberries (ribes) while I worked on a US Forerst Service blister rust eradication crew on the Ottawa National Forest after I got out of the sevice in 1956. Also supervised a crew later on the old Marquette National Forest when I got out of forestry school in 1961.

We ran strip lines marked with string across the area and pulled all the ribes on between.

[SwampDonkey]

Ron:

That had to be tedious work. With a handful of thorns too  none-the-less, from bristly currant anyway. I wouldn't want to have to pull blackberries either. Shread the leather gloves to pieces. I have a few ribies and rubus on the woodlot. Never see any fruit though.

[Texas Ranger]

Lewis Lawrence,

Don't know if the book is on line, it is an 80 page soft cover published by (wait for it, it's long)  USDA, Forest Service, State and Private Forestry- Southeastern Area Forest Pest Management Group.  Only ID, other than the title, is Southeastern Area S. and P.F.- 7.  The office is listed at:

USFS
1720 Peachtree Street. N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
Phone 404--526-3734.

It was published in 1972, when I was still a green and callow forester.  It may no longer be available.  Good though, if you can get it, definitions and pictures of causal agents and damages.  At the time it was a free passout at one of the conventions I was subjected to.

[Texas Ranger]

Lewis, a follow up look through google found the reprint as:

  
 Taken from Insects and Diseases of Trees in the South, USDA Forest Service - Southern Region, Protection Report R8-PR 16, June 1989
 
Another search yielded:  http://www.forestpests.org/southern/

Which, somehow I never found them, provides PDF's of insects and diseases.

[SwampDonkey]

Here's a site of tree diseases in Ontario

http://www.glfc.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/treedisease/sweet_fern_blister_rust_e.html


Sweetfern site

http://www.midwestlandscapeplants.org/plantdetails.cfm?speciesid=517

Its a nice smelling little plant

I've never seen any along our river valley but I've found it in jack pine-black spruce stands growing on sandy and bouldery glacial till of the Graham Plains. And  I mean boulders hehehhe, its like a different world over there.

[Tobacco Plug]

Thanks, Don.

[L. Wakefield]

   good references. We have lots of comptonia (and the poor soil it grows in) but I haven't seen ill pine trees. lw

[crosscut]

hey tom are you saying these pines are thirty years old ?? im probably confused here i usually am lol but if these are mature trees and for fl they are or are close to it in the pulpwood side of trees better be sure before you cut them down pulp wooders really dont care what they have they pay by weight or scale i think i would be sure what the problem is first here in fl we can sure grow a tree quick and or get a disiese misdiagnosed re citrus canker etc etc wait a bit on those trees really dont think it will hurt until you are sure what is happening here after the great fires here in fl i guess i happened to be one of the few not willing to rip off the insurance companies. removing so called dead pines. yearly anomalies happen for more reasons than us so called amatuers and any  experts can guess at id say wait untill you are sure on them