Last spring in upstate New York I noticed that most of the pine trees seemed to be covered with brown needles, as if the trees were dying.
Now all the pine trees on mine and the surrounding properties are suffering the same affliction (Fairfield Connecticut).
Anybody know what's going on here?
Neil
Look for the pine bark beetle.
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Another possibility is road salt. Are the dead trees near major roads that get salted in the winter, especially on the north side of the road?
Pines are shallow rooted and hence take up groundwater near the surface where pollutants are most concentrated.
John
John Bachman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
I've noticed that, though the pines seem to recover in the long term.
Drought!? You've got to be kidding. We've had record rainfall this summer.
Pine trees shed needles in the spring and fall (more in the fall than in the spring, I've noticed). If only some of the needles are turning brown and falling off, the trees may be going through their annual shed cycle. If all of the needles are turning brown and the trees look completely dead, then it's something different.
The white pines, jack pines and red pines growing on our property here in Wisconsin are going through their shed cycle right now.
A few years ago, a row of pine trees planted next to a golf course on a major highway in this area turned completely dry and brown from road salt. The trees were about four feet tall at the time. I thought they were dead. I figured there was no way they could recover. Today they are growing and thriving and look as though nothing had happened to them. Amazing.
LeAnn
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LeAnn
Is the forest all of a single age? I have some land that was pasture about 70 years ago, but then allowed to grow up in forest. When I bought the land, I noticed that a *lot* of the pine trees were sickly and fallen/falling. I called the local ag extension guy out and he told me that this was natural succession. Southern pine have a life span of 60-ish years, and my forest was transitioning from pine to hardwood, which were slowly taking over. Sure enough, he took me to a portion of the place that had been in forest for greater than 90 years, and it was mostly hardwood with very few pines.
billo
In many parts of the south, fires would have been set in the numerous summer lightning storms, and the forest would have remained pine, because the hardwoods are more susceptible to fire. (The pines will usually get scarred but will regenerate). This has been supressed except in certain of the natural forests, so much of the longleaf pine forest native to the coastal lowlands of the entire south has transitioned to hardwoods - also pretty, but not as useful for the wildlife native there. In the Appalachicola national forest near Tallahassee, the forest service sets controlled fires nearly every year in some area or another to maintain a pine forest.
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