Beng
Omono
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
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
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