Black Pine Problem

Hi all, i picked up a large black pine at the GSBF. The needles had brown tips fading to yellow fading to green. About 3/4 of the needle is green the rest quickly shifts to brown, then to a small dead tip. Some needles are worse then others. I looked over it with Gary Ishi and he thought it had a root problem that could be remedied in the spring. Or perhaps some kind of fertilizer burn. (he did not grow the pine it was grown by someone in northern california i forget the sellers name...)

Anyway it's doing the same as when I got it and only dropping its normal winter needles. This is a cork bark black pine but not a winged corker. I was out there this morning looking over it more closely finally and deciding if I should needle thin it this year. Long story short I see that the tips of some of the needles where the dead part meets the reddish brown part there's a opaque sap. It doesn't look like scale to me, or any scale i've ever seen on a pine, i'm thinking some kind of needle tip borer perhaps? I did find one with a missing circular area in the sap and attached a picture of that as well. But most of the sappy spots look like the other close up shot. Apologies for the bad pics these were through a 90mm lens. I also attached a overall shot to show the color. I treated the tree with copper recently to make sure it wasn't some kind of fungus but now i'm thinking maybe some kind of insect problem in the roots? Any ideas, 80% of the tree has needles like the one attached although this is one of the ones with the worst yellowing. If it is some kind of tip borer i'd think the best treatment would be to cut off all the tips below the yellow? I did break off a needle tip and it's not hollow inside.

I got it for a reasonable price considering it's a 30 year old tree and have some good plans for it so hope to be able to figure this one out.

BTW Hope you're all having a great holiday!





Ben

I think it might just be dried crystallized neem oil based on how I can break it off. I sprayed my pines last week and it hasn't rained since. Since its not on every needle maybe the neem pooled on some needles where the live needle meets the dead needle. But I could definitely be wrong if anyone thinks it's anything different lemme know. Obviously it's not in the best health but that's something I hope to fix this coming growing season.

Ben, "generally" browning tips is a hydration problem if they are uniform and consistent. Either acute or chronic under-watering or root zone problems. That covers a lot of territory to try and figure out! Water quality, ph, chemical burn are a few of the associated possible culprits. Added to the time delay for pines to show damage it can be a guessing game. Some of the needle cast fungus affect the tips but the damage is not usually uniform and consistent and to make a positive id a microscope is needed. Seeing the entire tree is always better than a few needles. Hope this helps.

garywood said:

Ben, "generally" browning tips is a hydration problem if they are uniform and consistent. Either acute or chronic under-watering or root zone problems. That covers a lot of territory to try and figure out! Water quality, ph, chemical burn are a few of the associated possible culprits. Added to the time delay for pines to show damage it can be a guessing game. Some of the needle cast fungus affect the tips but the damage is not usually uniform and consistent and to make a positive id a microscope is needed. Seeing the entire tree is always better than a few needles. Hope this helps.

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Here's a pic of the entire tree, the top i hope to air layer off in the future with wire around it to cause a swell for the future air layer, as well as the base. My plan from the first day i bought it was to air layer the top off and have two trees from it someday as I love the bark. The dead tips fading to red then to yellow is consistent all over the tree, no large brown areas anywhere overall looks pretty healthy except for the weird coloration it fades to on the tips. The mix you see in the pic of the base isn't what it's in, it's actually in a sandy gritty soil and is very root bound. This trees about 3 feet tall. The future tree will be around 1 foot. This fall I reduced some branches and did bud selection but no needle pinching yet due to the needle condition.

Ben, the tree looks generally healthy. It is holding older needles on lower branches so that's indicative of a fairly strong cork bark. From the initial post I was expecting much worse. Only a guess but it looks pretty common for a missed watering when it needed it but no major damage.

Thanks for taking a look at it. Up close like in the pictures the needles look pretty bad but its really only the top 1/3-1/4 of each needle. Would you do needle thinning to balance the tree a bit this winter or leave it be cause of the tips of the needles and since I plan to go at the roots late this spring when the times right.

BTW I saw the trident where you and Chris removed a big chunk out of half a giant branch to let it quicken the healing when I was up at telperion last month. Cool technique.

In pic two I see a wire at the top the trunk you might want to remove. Just wanted to make sure you did not miss that. It's wrapped around the main trunk.

jkd2572 said:

In pic two I see a wire at the top the trunk you might want to remove. Just wanted to make sure you did not miss that. It's wrapped around the main trunk.

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Nope I did that on purpose. A friend of mine in Maryland uses a technique where he pulls off the bark around the trunk and puts a wire around the trunk the year before he air layers a tree. Then he removes the wire and scars the trunk including the swollen area just above the wire. He says that this increases the ability to successfully air layer old wood on black pines and ESP cork bark varieties. He probably has 50 mature pine bonsai so I take him at his word. If the top dies so be it, it's gonna come off one way or another!

Ben

Ben, I usually don't remove any foliage\buds unless absolutely necessary when repotting trees in training because my first priority is always roots. Primarily, buds grow roots and without a good root system a good shoot system is delayed. That's the way I do it, not saying right or wrong, just the way I do it. An aside, how do we know there is always more roots than required?

Beng said:

Nope I did that on purpose. A friend of mine in Maryland uses a technique where he pulls off the bark around the trunk and puts a wire around the trunk the year before he air layers a tree. Then he removes the wire and scars the trunk including the swollen area just above the wire. He says that this increases the ability to successfully air layer old wood on black pines and ESP cork bark varieties. He probably has 50 mature pine bonsai so I take him at his word. If the top dies so be it, it's gonna come off one way or another!

Ben

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Interesting technique Ben, thanks for sharing. Will you be trying this in the spring? How long do you suspect it will take to push enough roots to separate. Don't mean to sidetrack your thread, good luck with the pine.

garywood said:

Ben, I usually don't remove any foliage\buds unless absolutely necessary when repotting trees in training because my first priority is always roots. Primarily, buds grow roots and without a good root system a good shoot system is delayed. That's the way I do it, not saying right or wrong, just the way I do it. An aside, how do we know there is always more roots than required?

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This past october i removed about 1/5 of the branches not suiting the o/a future design as they were in the area between the air layer and the tree I plan to be the main tree some day. I'm was thinking there will be no way to comb out these roots as its very root bound and ill have to be rough and remove more roots then I'd otherwise want to. Im guessing ill have to use a saw. If I can comb them out ill prune them as i would any other tree and put it in a appropriate sized flat while I work on the branches for a few years I think it's in a 5 gallon can now.

Nybonsai12 said:

Interesting technique Ben, thanks for sharing. Will you be trying this in the spring? How long do you suspect it will take to push enough roots to separate. Don't mean to sidetrack your thread, good luck with the pine.

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More then anything i need to see what's going on with the root system first. After I see that Ill wait till I see the top swelling above the wire to start it. The wires only been on there since October. I might not start it this year at all. Once I do my guess is if i start it in the spring it'll take till the fall to root but of course ill wait to remove it till I see plenty of feeder roots in the bag.

Beng said:

Nope I did that on purpose. A friend of mine in Maryland uses a technique where he pulls off the bark around the trunk and puts a wire around the trunk the year before he air layers a tree. Then he removes the wire and scars the trunk including the swollen area just above the wire. He says that this increases the ability to successfully air layer old wood on black pines and ESP cork bark varieties. He probably has 50 mature pine bonsai so I take him at his word. If the top dies so be it, it's gonna come off one way or another!

Ben

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I have to ask, how does the top of the tree, above where you removed the bark, stay alive for a year with no way for nutrients or sap to flow between the top and the roots?

ed

edprocoat said:

I have to ask, how does the top of the tree, above where you removed the bark, stay alive for a year with no way for nutrients or sap to flow between the top and the roots?

ed

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Currently there's still bark, I only removed the thick bark the tree didnt bleed at all from the bark removal. This type of black pine has about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of corking bark on the sides above its base bark. I didn't use a knife just popped it off with my thumb. Even when I do cut it for the air layer nutrients will still flow up. Once it starts to swell around the wire that's when I'll remove it and start the air layer.

http://www.evergreengardenworks.com/airlayer.htm

Worst case scenario if the swelling gets too heavy I remove the wire and then just wait till the following spring to do the air layer. From what my friend said the hormones will still be in the area to increase the chances of the air layer rooting.

Beng said:

Currently there's still bark, I only removed the thick bark the tree didnt bleed at all from the bark removal. This type of black pine has about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of corking bark on the sides above its base bark. I didn't use a knife just popped it off with my thumb. Even when I do cut it for the air layer nutrients will still flow up. Once it starts to swell around the wire that's when I'll remove it and start the air layer.

http://www.evergreengardenworks.com/airlayer.htm

Worst case scenario if the swelling gets too heavy I remove the wire and then just wait till the following spring to do the air layer. From what my friend said the hormones will still be in the area to increase the chances of the air layer rooting.

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Ok, in the second pic it looked as if the bark was removed down to the cambium almost like it was girdled. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

ed

edprocoat said:

Ok, in the second pic it looked as if the bark was removed down to the cambium almost like it was girdled. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

ed

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I'll be sure to update this one on here, will open a new post as I take the future steps.

The discolored needles are indicative of an unhealthy root system. I would do a repot late winter/ early spring. Don't do a full bare root repotting, do one half of the root ball. Then, next year do the other half.

On the half you leave intact, do tease out about 1/2 inch of small roots. When potted up, these small roots will now be in your good new soil. If you don't, roots won't go into the new soil.

I agree that it's most likely a problem with the roots especially if you're talking about needing a saw to cut through the rootball. We start repotting pines in early Feburary through March.
It's a very common problem- old field or nursery soil is left in the rootball which is then surrounded by new/better soil. I bet youu'll find a bunch of old compacted soil surrounded by better soil. I agree with removing the old soil down to bare roots only since it is in such a dee[ can I would do it over 3-4 repottings depending on what I find after getting into the roots.

In the 3rd pic there's a bit of needle cast on the right side. That's probably not the tip issue but just thought I'd mention it. One of the needles in the upper right of that photo has a dark band about 2/3 the way out on the needle. There's also a needle pointing downward at about 5 o clock on the bottom right that has a few lighter colored bands.
Ian

iant said:

In the 3rd pic there's a bit of needle cast on the right side. That's probably not the tip issue but just thought I'd mention it. One of the needles in the upper right of that photo has a dark band about 2/3 the way out on the needle. There's also a needle pointing downward at about 5 o clock on the bottom right that has a few lighter colored bands.
Ian

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Thanks but i'm not so worried about that it's been sprayed twice this fall/winter with copper and will be hit once more before spring. I've dealt with needle cast on pines before its not to hard to get rid of as long as your on top of it and keep fallen needles off the soil.