Blue spruce problem

[Tucker943]

I need help. I planted 3 blue spruce in a bed for a customer last spring. Trees have always thrived in this location. We removed a few white pines, ground the stumps, and replaced them with blue spruce. 2 of the spruce are thriving, this one is browning out and tips are curling back in. They are about 12 feet apart....... ?

 

[Frax]

When you ground the stumps, did you excavate the pile and add back regular soil. I'm sure you probably did. In my region, I find if not enough of the grindings are removed the soil dries way too fast and roots don't establish.

And, it is also fairly common to get stuck with bad nursery stock, so even if everything is done right, a tree that is stressed going in may not fare well with the added transplant shock that all new trees have to get around.

 

[FJR]

If those roots didn't establish and the tree is under significant stress, then you can almost bet spider mites are present as well.

 

[Frax]

If those roots didn't establish and the tree is under significant stress, then you can almost bet spider mites are present as well.

Good call.

Check for those little bastards by holding a white card or paper towel under a limb that still has some live growth just behind the brown tips and tap it The spider mites will appear as very tiny black dots runninga round. You will also see very fine webbing.

 

[Old Monkey]

Anyone salt a sidewalk near that tree to keep folks from slipping?

 

[Al Smith]

There was an epidemic of spruce canker which came through here a few years ago .The symptoms looked similar . I don't profess to know a darned thing about certain problems of trees .However from what the state forester told me it could be caused by too wet of growing conditions .

From what the lady said a blue spruce is a mountain tree which thrives in sandy rocky soil conditions where things are well drained but they don't do so well in heavy clay soils if that be the case of which I have no way of knowing .

In that praticular incident I lost several nice spruce but was able to save 4 or 5 nice ones .One golf course lost nearly every one they had numbering in the hundreds .

 

[Tucker943]

Here's what I know. The trees are road side. Not ideal, but the property owner has been aware of the risks of salt and trees for a very long time and has never had problems and so he was comfortable with replacing trees that I took down there. He claims the road has only been salted twice this winter, which I believe as we have had only 6 inches of snow this winter. All stump grindings were removed from the hole because I had to dig the holes quite a bit larger to accomodate the root balls and have ample room to put loose soil in around the ball. As for nursery stock, maybe it was lousy. I buy all my trees from the grower 10 miles away. I do that because my region is known for piss poor acidic soil, and I seem to feel that trees I plant see far less transplant shock when they are raised in the same region. Trees planted in this area that cone up from the carolinas get a rude awakening for awhile when they get dropped into this soil. The tree had a dry feel to it. The needles were not nearly as flexible as the needles on the 2 other spruces. I did find out that the property owner had a small French drain installed VERY close to the base of that tree to move standing water away from that part of his property...... I'm starting to wonder if that's the culprit.

 

[Jamin Mayer]

It looks like early stages of Rhizospaera Needlecast.
See that link within the colored text.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Jamin!!!

 

[Tucker943]

I'm going to take a sample and have it analyzed by the Penn State Cooperative Extension lab....... If you are on the money Jamin, ill mail you a beer.

 

[Ax-Man]

This doesn't look good. Looks like the start of Cytospora canker or what Al is calling Spruce canker. Rhizo is basically the same thing only the tips stay green and the inner needles die or fall off . Cytospora kills the entire branch, usually but not always works it way from the ground up but can infect the whole tree.

There is defiantely some kind of stress factor at work here.

Spruce as a rule like sandy well drained soils but will tolerate a heavier soil as long the soil prercs good. Kind of a fine line between well drained and poorly drained. Spruce do a little better in slightly poor drained soils than do other evergreens such as Doug fir. Poor drained soils can trigger Rhizo and Cytospora but so can competion from other trees stealing sunlight which leads to shading and poor air circulation that can hinder drying the tree after a rain and allow the canker spores to form and multiply.

The way I understand this is that in their native Colorado they don't have this disease problem because the native range of the C. Spruce is like a high desert and the canker fungus can't survive like it can here in the Midwest. I have seen wind breaks destroyed because of this disease but have seen 60 foot specimens with no care given to them ever and not one dead branch, no brown needles, branches down to the ground next to driveways with crushed limestone gravel. I can't really explain it but just about all these specimen trees have in common is there are no neighboring trees and they have total full sun exposure along with good drained soil. I think that as a Spruce matures in the Midwest their immune systems slow down to fight these little enviromental stress factors and just don't have the vigor for defense like they do when they are immature ,young juvinile tree and succumb to a slow death when they reach a cetain age which seems to be about 40 to 50 years old.

Just my take on this.

 

[Al Smith]

From what the forester told me a blue spruce will never reach full maturity in the mid west .

I've been in that high desert condition in Colorado .It really isn't desert like the Sahara .

On Red and White mountain near Edwards Col .are the stumps from gigantic spruce cut in the late 20s' ,some over 5 feet in diamater .During the mid 30s' a beetle infestation weakened the remaining trees and as of that during my years of hunting in that area I never saw a spruce over 2 feet in diameter .They'd get tall ,about 100 feet they just never got to the size of the old growth before they died standing .

The conditions are dry in the high mountains .Like a piece of steel would probabley last 150 years before it rusted away to nothing .As of the mid 80s' parts and pieces of old logging equipment could still be found in those mountains .Rusty but intact .

 

[Al Smith]

If it is that Cytospora canker as per the forester here's what you do .Take a set of loppers ,pruners what ever you call them and lop the infected branchs off .Use a solution of bleach and water to dip the tool in prior to each cut .Burn the offending branchs .

Problem being it's a spruce you get to hacking on it it sure looks bad .As I said I saved some .The ones with just infestation on the lower branchs .The ones planted under the 100 foot oaks were so screwed up I jerked them out by the roots .I pruned one but it looked so funky ,bald .I just hastened the inevitable .They would have died any way .

 

[Climbinfool.]

Log em ! and start over...