Pinus nigra surviving needle cast

[Japonicus]

Your Austrian black pine is looking good. I have been experimenting with a young one for the last couple years. How old is yours? It is beginning to bark up nicely. Mine is still some years away from that kind of bark, I guess.

thanks. for what I understand, Pinus nigra= Austrian black pine. Needle size and candles look exactly like mine

Hey I thought about your posts here when I found this tag in the cabinet looking for a crabapple tag last night.
My wife had compiled all tags roses included into an envelope. So this one was purchased Sept 2009
for $6.98 confirming the 1 gallon statement in 1st post.

Looks like it surpassed the 1 year guarantee on the tag

 

[JeffS73]

How is your tree right now? I've had a pretty good season battling needlecast (dothistroma needle blight).

 

[Japonicus]

How is your tree right now? I've had a pretty good season battling needlecast (dothistroma needle blight).

Doing alright. I haven't done much to it this year at all really.
I told @Adair M I wanted to bring it to the workshop I went to at PCB last month,
but out of respect to others (even though it looked pretty healthy) I decided to leave it behind.

IIRC Adair said p. Nigra is treated more like JWP.

 

[JeffS73]

That's a very respectful thing to do, we should all be that careful. It's a nice tree, especially for a European Black Pine.

I think one of biggest differences for me with the needlecast battle was staying on top of infected needles. I removed all of the badly infected needles, unless they were essential, in which case I cut them back to healthy tissue. These would often still succumb later. I tried to work clean using alcohol and wiping tools and hands.

When the new candles opened, I removed all of the old needles. This did slow trees down, and maybe some were over weakened, but in general this was the turning point in tree health.

After that, if I saw infection setting in on new needles, I just pulled them through the season. Spent hours doing this but my trees look a lot better for it.

If there are no needles producing new conidia/spores, disease pressure will drop and you can stay on top of it with fungicides.

I hope you can get back to a healthy tree! You're so right that until its healthy, you can't really apply bonsai techniques. Best of luck.

 

[Japonicus]

Repotted this one today even though I feel like it was past the potting window.
The soil was overly compacted on top and was not percolating really, well very little.





I worked the roots pretty hard but the tap root goes from one end of the root ball to the other making
a single circling return. It is quite thick compared to the rest and I was not comfortable cutting it this go around.



...any way it is out of the mica pot it had been in for however many years.
I could have used a smaller pot, but did not have one to fit the bill.

 

[Japonicus]

Today i got STARTED removing more diseased needles but that's most of them. Removed a lot of under growth on the branches and shoots. Have already done one treatment with both Bonide granules and Daconil spray. It's time for a 2nd spraying. Guess this is going to take many years of treatment to get ahead of the problem.

 

[AJL]

That's a very respectful thing to do, we should all be that careful. It's a nice tree, especially for a European Black Pine.

I think one of biggest differences for me with the needlecast battle was staying on top of infected needles. I removed all of the badly infected needles, unless they were essential, in which case I cut them back to healthy tissue. These would often still succumb later. I tried to work clean using alcohol and wiping tools and hands.

When the new candles opened, I removed all of the old needles. This did slow trees down, and maybe some were over weakened, but in general this was the turning point in tree health.

After that, if I saw infection setting in on new needles, I just pulled them through the season. Spent hours doing this but my trees look a lot better for it.

If there are no needles producing new conidia/spores, disease pressure will drop and you can stay on top of it with fungicides.

I hope you can get back to a healthy tree! You're so right that until its healthy, you can't really apply bonsai techniques. Best of luck.

The problem here in UK is there are so many P. nigra trees in the wider environment now infected with Dothistroma - AKA Red band Needle Blight. Even if you manage to ''cure'' your tree there is a high risk of re- infection from windblown spores from trees in the nearest plantations.

 

[Japonicus]

Needlecast should be treated for each Spring before symptoms manifest
Now I will spend a number of years to get back to that point

 

[Japonicus]

3 years later from OP
I'm still battling this.
Last yr repotted + all my conifers got some sort of infection, so hopefully another 3 yrs it will look stronger.

Today i pinched most candles back as far as i was comfortable.
Maybe a little further in a few places.
The top is sacrifice.