We are losing the 30' pine tree which has lived in our yard for over 50 years. It has been diagnosed as having a fungus, Diplodia pinea which is most damaging to pine species native to our home state, Nebraska. Our pine is dying branch by branch, turning brown starting from the trunk and spreading to the outer branches.
The most noticable symptom of diplodia blight is brown, stunted new growth resulting in short brown needles. They look dead. Although the tree, from what we were told, had probably been infected for several years, we attributed the dead lower branches to winter damage. Nebraska has winters of very cold weather, then rising temperatures, followed by severe cold snaps. Last year was particularly bad...again, we thought the tree was slow in recovering.
In driving around our area, I've seen many, many pine trees in the same condition or worse. Some are skeletons, bare branches with no needles at all. We had been told that this fungus was working it's way from the east coast, but paid no attention to the warnings...hopefully its not too late to save our beautiful pine.
An Extension Agent from the University of Nebraska is coming to look at it, and give whatever advice he has to offer....can it be saved of will it need to be cut down.
The most noticable symptom of diplodia blight is brown, stunted new growth resulting in short brown needles. They look dead. Although the tree, from what we were told, had probably been infected for several years, we attributed the dead lower branches to winter damage. Nebraska has winters of very cold weather, then rising temperatures, followed by severe cold snaps. Last year was particularly bad...again, we thought the tree was slow in recovering.
In driving around our area, I've seen many, many pine trees in the same condition or worse. Some are skeletons, bare branches with no needles at all. We had been told that this fungus was working it's way from the east coast, but paid no attention to the warnings...hopefully its not too late to save our beautiful pine.
An Extension Agent from the University of Nebraska is coming to look at it, and give whatever advice he has to offer....can it be saved of will it need to be cut down.
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