Sick (black?) Pine

Rawman

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Hi all, my little pine's candles (from local quarry) gone black and die. Now its growing a really weird way. How can i deal with it?
I saw it before in nature, but have never had to solve this problem.
( Execuse my English, please.)
 

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Wires_Guy_wires

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That new growth looks juvenile. Those fat juvenile needles are ugly but it means your branch is still alive.
I'm not sure about how to handle those kind of clusters. In my garden I try to grow them out for 1 year and select 1 or 2 buds at the end of the season and I remove the rest. Because this cluster growth usually ends up with so many growing buds, they push against each and pinch off the sap flow, other leading to a cluster of dead buds. Then the branch dies with it.

I used to think it was a stress response, but I have seedlings doing the same thing spontaneously.

I'm not sure if my strategy is the best, I believe there could be something better, but I'm not sure what that would be.
 

sorce

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Looks like it is coming out of the "stress".

but I have seedlings doing the same thing spontaneously

I'd be curious to know the conditions. Before typing that I was thinking....(damn thinking a lot more now)..

As far as cause and effect goes...Maybe this act of pushing fatter needles with more solar surface is not a stress response persay, but a "live no matter what" thing, that needs no cause.

But my first thought was bad conditions.

But my third and most reasonable, if hard to imagine, thought...

The program in the cotyledons is set by the mother. So perhaps the mother was stressed at seeding. Maybe when they "near death" reproduce out of stress, seedlings always come out like that?

Interesting.

Sorce
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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I have 50 seedlings in the same tray, with the same soil and the same feeding regimen, all from the same batch of seeds.

If it's transferrable from parent to offspring I would suspect it not to happen in certain cultivars, since those trees are grown at nurseries from either cutting or seed and the parent trees need to be healthy for both. But my norwegian type sylvestris does it, my mugo's do it, my J. red pines do it too.

I did keep a good look at how it progresses:
Starting point is multiple buds on the same location.
The buds throw juvenile foliage, half of it dies. They grow at different rates.
They form new buds in fall or winter, as a super dense cluster.
The buds wake up in spring and soon die in the second year, usually around summer. They die naturally by turning brown and shriveling.

Thinning the cluster seems to be beneficial, but it's no guarantee that it'll live. If it does, it returns to normal in the third or fourth year.

Could be something viral, bacterial, witchbrooming or something. I'm suspecting something bacterial.
 

sorce

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Could be something viral, bacterial, witchbrooming or something. I'm suspecting something bacterial.

With that non stop mugo(Scot?) of yours, and now this....I'm starting to think something funky may be floating around your garden.

Don't they have all them tulips in "Canada"? Maybe something chemical from that trade is effecting them? Maybe it's in the water? "Canada" is close to "Flint Michigan". Flint got that lead. I know it's not really close.😜

And you don't spray right?

Sorce
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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With that non stop mugo(Scot?) of yours, and now this....I'm starting to think something funky may be floating around your garden.

Don't they have all them tulips in "Canada"? Maybe something chemical from that trade is effecting them? Maybe it's in the water? "Canada" is close to "Flint Michigan". Flint got that lead. I know it's not really close.😜

And you don't spray right?

Sorce
The funky thing floating around the garden is identified as myself! I take full responsibility.

I'm just a couple miles away from America, no tulips here, that's the upper side of the country, the old sea floor. We do cows, pigs, chickens, potatoes and corn around here.
America is rose country, and starting to do a lot of blueberries and asparagus. The Polish are our Mexicans, they do all the hard work. They're good people.

I'm in a more urbanizing area, hardly any green left. I don't spray, but maybe I should. Been reading a bit about phytoplasma and it seems like a possibe culprit.

I know the issue is hormonal, but since the rest of the plant develops as usual, I don't think it was my application. It must be something on the inside.
But transmission.. How did it get inside trees I haven't touched?! This doesn't make sense. It's not spreading to other parts either.
 
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I had once something like that on a P. sylvestris; I have been told, for what it is worth, that it aphids were the culprits. Anyway, the following years the problem didn't reappeared.
 

Rawman

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It all happened after my grandma took care of this pine (and other one wich died). I told her "Water it once a day and place it on some half shady place, its just repoted, please." After two weeks I returned from waccations one pine was completly gray and this one was bit unhealthly. She said "I did all like you said. Lot of sun and water once a week." This was the moment I realise I should never do the same mistake and rather ask someone else. :D
 
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