was over having a beer with my buddy Jim. and he reminded me that he has a tree that has been half brown and getting worse over two years.
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I can add more pics if you need. what kind of tree, what is wrong, and is there something to do about it. thanks!
Too many elliptical orbits around that big nuclear blob called Sol - it's happening to all of us. ;D
The easy and very general answer which provides no real causes is you have a pine (Ponderosa?) tree growing in an area that has no native pine trees. Trees planted outside their native range tend to have a shorter life span.
How's that for a non-answer? In unrelated news, I'm thinking I should run for office. ;)
Clark
Scotch (scott} Pine?
Nematode disease that took out our Scotch pines here 10 years ago looks like that.
If it is scotch pine, they do not fare well in Missouri over the years.
It is a landscape tree. not sure of the species. it has been brown for a few years. I think nematode is fast, like brown to dead in a month or so?
Is there a natural gas line near there?
i will have to ask.
Doc, the years money maker for the Forestry Club at the U of Mo was selling Scotch Pine Christmas trees. We had a stand on school land that we cut from, and replanted. After a certain age they trees were no longer right for Christmas trees. The older ones displayed the symptoms you describe. Those would be cut to replant the area.
is there something to do about it? (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=reporttm;topic=112073.0;msg=1756435)
smiley_chop
Quote from: square1 on October 24, 2020, 08:27:43 AM
is there something to do about it? (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=reporttm;topic=112073.0;msg=1756435)
I always thought they were planted off site and age did not sit well with them.
I finally got some closer pics of the tree for ID and poss. diagnosis. any further thoughts.
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found this in the tree, double needles.
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The egg mass on the needle is from a praying mantis. It has nothing to do with the condition of the tree, but if you keep it, you can hatch an army of beneficial insects.
Its lower limbs were pruned in the not too distant past, causing a significant injury to the tree. I would fare to guess that this injury opened a path for some type of fungal infection. That infection is now blocking the transport of nutrients and water.
Wudman
what species? @WDH (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=4370) @Southside (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=24297) @GeneWengert-WoodDoc (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=20498) @YellowHammer (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=11488) .
Austrian pine?
thanks Tex. I do not know, but I have those in my yard. and it does look similar.
It is a long 2-needle-to-the-fascile pine with a small ovoid cone. It is a yellow pine. It is not ponderosa, lodgepole, jack, shortleaf, or any other native 2 needle pine that I know of. Might be a furriner. Maybe I am just xenophobic.
And Mr Big words is back!!! ;D
You and Slider are a pair.
You can certainly rule out Scots pine, there have been a few planted around up here on old Christmas tree farms. Most get abandoned and the insects do a number on them. They are the crookedest looking pine around and the needles are darker green than our native jack pine. They do tend to seed in on fields that they have been planted on. They would probably remind you more of a Virginia pine, jack pine, or lodgepole pine, except probably the crookedest in the lot. :D Like a jack pine at least, a lower limb will often try to get dominance in the crown when open grown.
My son bought a house on the edge of Hope KS, which has several pine trees, and they are all dying. My thought is the droughts we have had in KS has contributed to their demise.
Quote from: WDH on November 11, 2020, 08:53:28 PM
It is a long 2-needle-to-the-fascile pine with a small ovoid cone. It is a yellow pine. It is not ponderosa, lodgepole, jack, shortleaf, or any other native 2 needle pine that I know of. Might be a furriner. Maybe I am just xenophobic.
It is definitely not what's called in my area of KY, these various names: jack pine, black pine, field pine or bad names not in a tree book. I have cut a bunch of them sold for pine posts.
I agree with the above quote as not much about the picture matches the ones I name here with local names all for the same tree. Locals here sometimes miss-name Virginia pines as SYP's, even some logger will do that. SYP is not very common near me and found in spots.
I planted 3,000 Virginia pines and same amount of EWP, both were stock from sate tree farm and genetically selected for growth and size but otherwise same as wild trees. Virginias always have a blacker bark than our Local Jack pines.
Having lived in KS my 1st 30 years I would have called the tree in this thread a Scotch pine as there are no true pins wild grown there in my experience but scotch pines used to be grown/sold for a Christmas tree in KS.
Don't I wish we had Lodgepole pines here in KY, they'd go into my cabin.
You have to remember by and large a pine is a mountain tree .A landscape type tree usually will never be as robust .Kind of like Lombardy poplar that can get huge in the Pacific north west but seldom live more than 20 years in this area of the country ..Colorado blue spruce, I have a few but I've seen them on the slopes in Colorado and these will never grow that long or large .
White pines are native to portions of Ohio mainly the east and south east ,never here in the north west .
It is a long needled pine. That rules out Scotch pine and cones are not right.
Ponderosa can have 2 and 3 needles per fascicle. It was commonly planted as a wind break tree in the Midwest for decades.
No obvious signs of pathogen or insect invasion. Could be a water issue. Is it planted in a wet spot? Seems to be dying from the bottom up.
Native trees grow where they compete best not where they grow best. Moving a native tree species out of its natural range is no big deal for the tree as long as they get some water, growing space and nutrients.
Native conifers often do best on well drained soils. Does this site have clay in it?
sandy soil, and 20 feet uphill from a drainage ditch. whole street on a slope so most water drains away. hmmm.
it is still dying. so we should be able to see the wood grain eventually if that helps. :snowball: :) :)
I'm not a pine tree expert or an expert on any tree .Now saying that I've been told on residential yard trees most people clean up the dropped needles under the trees "pine straw " so it looks neat and tidy .Some say this is not the thing to do because in a natural setting the decaying needles are beneficial for the health of the tree .That would make sense if you think about .
In the older neighborhood of Homewood, AL (Birmingham) where one of our Son's lives, there are mature SYP's in most all yards along with oaks that are ~ 150-175 yrs old-oaks there up to 4' diameter. I'm talking trees in manicured lawns, few pine needles, and often pine diameters up to 36" or so. As we walked for exercise a few years ago after a bad storm, I winced as the tree services chopped up huge SYP trees into chunks and loaded on trucks. What I wouldn't give to saw a few on my mill.
Point is, based on age and size, they seem to say the needles don't matter?
Yes but those manicured lawns are given fertilizer that also feed the trees
now I have a pine (Austrian I think) in trouble. the two on the left, were in the back yard when we moved here. tree spaded ten years ago, and grew well. the one on the left, has been slower I think due to proximity to the other trees. ERC and cottonwood. it has had a few brown needles for a year, now over a few weeks, gone.
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I took, but cannot find, the close up pic. will get another after the sun is up.
I've got a pine of some kind about a 70-80 footer slowly dying .I'll give it another year but doubt it will recover .I have no idea what kind is beca
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use unlike many I'm not a forester but I can tell the difference between a white oak and a shag bark hickory .
If it has 5 needles to the bundle it is white pine called a soft pine. If it has either 2 or 3 needles to the bundle, it is one of the yellow pines, called hard pines. Red pine would have 2 needles to the bundle.
Maybe 10 years we had extremely wet weather two years in a row and I had several spruce trees showing signs of decline starting with the lower limbs .I called the state of Ohio forestry about it ,this is what I was told .
Spruce ,pine etc are mountain trees .As such the extremely rich organic soils in north west Ohio may grow good crops it doesn't grow healthy pine trees .She suggested clipping the lower branches and dip the loppers in a mixture of bleach and water .I saved most but many were too far gone . In the picture I posted that blue spruce was one I managed to save . According to the forester it was a type of canker .
From what I remember about Birmingham it's kind of hilly .My wife's cousin took us on a tour .Great big southern mansions on those hills .Million dollar homes to say the least with big trees .Somebody had a lot of money at one time and probably still do .
Quote from: Al_Smith on October 07, 2021, 10:28:35 AM
From what I remember about Birmingham it's kind of hilly .My wife's cousin took us on a tour .Great big southern mansions on those hills .Million dollar homes to say the least with big trees .Somebody had a lot of money at one time and probably still do .
Actually, what you're calling Birmingham is Mountain Brook or Homewood. Both are old money towns with many huge pines and hardwoods in well manicured yards. Birmingham is mostly much poorer but they are building and selling a lot of lofts in the downtown area. No big trees there or much else worth having in my opinion. ( I'm not a bug fan of B'ham if you haven't guessed).
Quote from: KenMac on February 06, 2022, 09:28:29 PM
Quote from: Al_Smith on October 07, 2021, 10:28:35 AM
From what I remember about Birmingham it's kind of hilly .My wife's cousin took us on a tour .Great big southern mansions on those hills .Million dollar homes to say the least with big trees .Somebody had a lot of money at one time and probably still do .
Actually, what you're calling Birmingham is Mountain Brook or Homewood. Both are old money towns with many huge pines and hardwoods in well manicured yards. Birmingham is mostly much poorer but they are building and selling a lot of lofts in the downtown area. No big trees there or much else worth having in my opinion. ( I'm not a bug fan of B'ham if you haven't guessed).
I'm not a BIG fan either..... :D