pine tree rust?

[pantheraba]

The middle tree in this group (next to our lot at work) is showing a rust color...also, the one next to it is starting to show a little, too.

Do pines recover from this type of condition? Nothing has changed around the trees to cause it (drainage, elevations, etc. have been same). I am wondering if I am going to need to remove these trees...they are between our storage trailer and the warehouse next door.

We have had an on-going drought, real bad last year. I wonder if I am starting to see effects of the drought?

Ideas?

 

[OTGBOSTON]

I'd guess drought or salt damage. Are there actually rust colored spores? or just browning needles?

 

[pantheraba]

Browning needles is what I saw.

 

[lumberjack]

Sometimes some of the pine needles in a bundle/limb will brown all over the tree, normally they recover.

Southern pine beatle attacks bottom up, Ipps attacks top down.

From what I've found it's VERY rare for a drought to kill a pine. Normally what happens is they are stressed by the drought which makes them more supseptable to the creepy cruddy bugs.

Can you get a better picture of the effected tree?

 

[SkwerI]

I'd look for borer holes.

 

[OTGBOSTON]

Browning needles is what I saw.

I'd keep my guesstimate at mechanical damage.....

 

[BostonBull]

I'd guess drought or salt damage.

 

[Blinky]

I'm with Lumberjack, red needles with no visible damage SPB or Ipps. It goes though stressed trees in a wave.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Arizona Root Rot.

 

[hugashe]

its dying. ive never seen a pine come back from browning but i could be wrong.

 

[treelooker]

not fusiform rust disease; just a rust color. I don't think drought/root competition is out of the question.

 

[NickfromWI]

I'm with lj on this one. But that is based on what I see around Los Angeles. We are following the driest year in LA history and the boring beetles are having a hay-day on the pine trees.

love
nick

 

[BostonBull]

don't forget pests are opportunists. they attack trees that are already stressed.

 

[OTGBOSTON]

don't forget pests are opportunists. they attack trees that are already stressed.

Don't forget these pines are out of our area of expertise....

 

[THillMaine]

rust

I would agree with OTG as well as being out of my area...but...two thing that come to mind...phomopsis tip blight and diplodia...if either of there are the case (which they are very likely not) then look for the other trees to start to become affected...phomopsis is also a quick death..

 

[Old Monkey]

If it was here I'd say it was borers. If it is dry it cannot pitch out borers.

 

[pantheraba]

I'll try to get some close up pictures tomorrow...may help the diagnoses. Thanks for the input so far.

 

[sotc]

id agree with borrers as a good guess. is there fine powdery sawdust in the bark ridges? white salty looking deposits on the trunk? tons of small pin holes in the bark?

 

[pantheraba]

id agree with borrers as a good guess. is there fine powdery sawdust in the bark ridges? white salty looking deposits on the trunk? tons of small pin holes in the bark?

Great questions...I went out and took a close look and pictures. You may be right...see what y'all think. I left the file size large so you can zoom in...there are a lot of pin holes. Pictures 8 and 9 show the white powdery/salty residue at the base of the tree...did not see it above ground level.

(MB, I had to upload one at a time...it would not take a batch upload. Any ideas why?)

 

[MasterBlaster]

No idea, sometime the software takes a dump.

 

[SkwerI]

Butch, I think the picture uploading thing has been a problem for everybody since the last big forum outage about 3 weeks ago.

Gary, told ya it was borers.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I just posted three pics, and yesterday I posted a shitload at once in the pitchers thread. I think it's just bad timing - the software is burping at the same time you're uploading... I think. It DID burp good yesterday a couple times for 10 minutes or so.


edit; it burped just now.

 

[Frans]

diplodia...

Gave me a good laugh, thanks. 'diplodia' is one of those two dollar words which essentially means a general decline attributed to a number of different factors.

I like throwing that word out to a client when I am not sure exactly what is going on.

(ThillMaine, I mean no disrespect, you made a good determination, its just the word I am talking about)


What you are seeing is bark beetles. IPS to be exact. Notice the frass? That is a mixture of excrement and sawdust.

By the time you see that, the beetles have already colonized and moved on.
On the back of the beetles is usually a fungus called Pine Pitch Canker. As the beetle bores into the tree, this fungus is rubbed off.

Like it has already been stated by the others, drought stress or other environmental or mechanical factors cause the tree to lower it's natural defenses. At that point opportunistic insects can move in.

Your trees are toast. Of course if you want to sell the place, just tell the prospective buyer that they are 'copper pines', then take the money and run.

Something else to consider is that these pines have a very short life span of 70-90 years max. They require continuous summer time irrigation as well.

 

[SkwerI]

Butch, I can upload as many pictures as I want, but I have to do them one at a time. Same as everybody else on the forum except you. The fact that only you can upload multiple pics tells me that it's a setting somewhere that is different between admin and the rest of us users.

But I guess since you don't have the problem, it isn't a problem. :roll:

 

[sotc]

gary, can you peel the bark back and get a photo of the galleries?

butch, its a three week belch we cant up load more than one at a time. we can do as many in a post as we like but before the recent change i could upload 5 in one shot