![]() ![]() Once the disease reaches the trunk there is nothing that can be done. There a canker forms, and sap runs down the bark. This fungus attacks side branches, which die – creating ‘flags’ – and then spreads along the branch until it meets the trunk. These lovely native trees are usually easy to grow, but there is one serious disease that can attack them. If you live in the north-east, you might have a white pine tree. ![]() There are a number of diseases that can be seen on different pines, but these are the most common of the serious ones, that can cause major damage or death. Deciding on what disease is affecting your tree is a combination of what signs you see and what type of pine it is, since many diseases are specific to one or a few different species. You need to know how many needles there are in the bundles on the stems, and having a mature cone helps a lot. There are good resources on the internet too. If you don’t know, ask around your neighbors, often they will know, or take a branch – with some cones if possible – to a local garden center and they may be able to help. You can see there are not a lot of different things that will show you there is a problem, so knowing what the problem actually is depends a lot on what kind of pine tree you have. ![]() Several different organisms can cause them. Round swellings and growths on the stems – these are called ‘galls’, and although unsightly they are rarely dangerous to the tree. If they are, nothing is wrong, but if it is younger needles that are yellow, you could have a problem. These will always be the last needles before the bare part of the stem. This shouldn’t be confused with the normal, season browning and falling of older needles. Later they will turn brown, either completely or in bands. Yellow needles – sometimes needles turn yellow, sooner than they normally would. Notice if they are on new shoots only, before the needles have had time to develop fully, or if a whole branch of mature shoots has died. As it dries it turns white and flakey around the edges of the flow, or it may dry completely into white or grey flakes on the bark.ĭead shoots or branches – these might be anywhere in the tree – foresters often call them ‘flags’. This can even collect at the bottom of the tree, on the ground. Resin running down the trunk – If the bark is injured by diseases sticky resin often escapes and flows down the bark. Pine trees only have so many ways to tell us they are not doing well, and there are several things we might spot that are indicators of diseases. An earlier blog on Diseases of Maples has been a popular resource for our readers, so to continue giving that basic information, this time we are going to look at the diseases that pine trees may suffer from, which one’s matter, and what to do about them. So for gardeners, it helps to have some knowledge of diseases, to encourage the good, and separate the bad from the merely ugly. Other diseases look dramatic but do very little harm. Most often it is a lower-level disease that picks away at a particular type of tree, like the Verticillium Wilt that is spreading through maple trees these days. ![]() Sometimes it is a major outbreak, like Dutch Elm Disease, that decimates a much-loved tree. This is usually true, trees are remarkably tough, and most grow and survive without problems. We hope that our tree will grow and flourish, living out its life – which will certainly be decades, and perhaps even a hundred years or more – free of problems that threaten it. Planting a tree is an action full of hope. ![]()
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