Well, any help would be appriciated. These blue's are 10-12 high. They were looking great this spring, and now, well they have died back. Thanks for any help. I am near Pittsburgh. There has been no ground disturbance to affect the trees.
Reid
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11262/Odyingpine1.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11262/Odyingpine2.jpg)
:( Are they the only 2 affected or are they the only 2 you have?
I am sure a pro will step up soon , my uneducated guess is a nasty bug.
Drought or drowning or poor nutrients usually show in the new growth first. This looks like the trunk has been attacked at a specific point.
Can you get up close to look for more clues?
These two are the only ones in the area. We have others (blues) but not in this area. They are healthy. reid
Down here in lower Alabama in the last few weeks I have noticed a growing number pines and hardwoods turning brown, usually starting at the top but eventually taking the whole tree. It is both young trees as well as mature ones. Easy to spot in the landscape because the brown stands out. Until recently we have been experiencing drought conditions. I figger it is due to that???? ??? ???
We have had some heat up here but not drought. Some trees typically brown up this time of year, Locust for one.
Thanks for your thoughts, Reid
Here in Mississippi we get a few pines to die like that each year. Seems that the dry weather stresses them and then the pine beetle finishes them off. Not much we can do other than harvest the tree.
Reid, my guess would be environmental. Cytospora canker is common on blue spruce, but manifests itself throughout the tree. They may be kind of young for it anyway.
Our hot, humid summers are not good for blue spruce.
Are there galls on any of the ends of the limbs? They would look like the branch balloned up, smaller than a ping pong ball and have spikes on them.
I've been noticing that all the scotch and Austrian pines are dying. You'll drive along and see a dead tree, and it will most probably be one of those species. I'm guessing pine wilt on these trees.
I also had that happen to some of my larger blue spruce. They all died. I think it was needle cast on the spruce.
Here's a link for spruce insect and disease problems:
http://www.treehelp.com/trees/spruce/spruce-iandd.asp
Reid, when were these trees transplanted?
Mike, Transplanted 7 years ago.
Ron, Thanks for the link
Reid
My first guess would be mites. They start in the top of a spruce and work their way down. Take a white sheet of paper and hold it under a brown branch. Shake the branch and see if you wind up with tiny crawly things on it. Mites are so small they are almost invisible to the naked eye. Hold it for a few minutes and see if you see anything moving.
They may not be active this time of year. Try it now, but you might have to wait til next spring to check a newly yellowed/browned branch.
I'm on the wrong side of the continent to know for sure, but if I saw something like that here, my first thought would be Pissodes strobi (http://www.odf.state.or.us/DIVISIONS/management/forestry_assistance/library/pub/fhn/pstrobi.pdf)
I noticed that the roadways in Michigan were loaded with a lot of spruce trees that were dead too. I wondered the same thing about what ws killing them. I suspect some sort of borer.
There are pines down here (Florida) that are dieing like that too, but my best guess is the bark beetle that is doing it.
Reid, what did you figure out?
Typically top of the crown dieback is due to root problems/death.
Mike,
No solution, too busy to do much. Reid
Sawflies maybe?
Yellow headed saw fly (http://www.pfc.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/entomology/defoliators/tenthredinid/yellowheaded_e.html)
yellow headed sawfly with picture of defoiliated tree top (pdf doc) (http://www.entomology.umn.edu/cues/Web/225YellowheadedSpruceSawfly.pdf)