Help with needle disease ID

[Mike Hennigan]

This is a scots pine, kind of a taller tree that I will be reducing to the lowest foliage once I can increase vigor in the lower part of the tree. Seems like I didn’t look at this tree for two days and all of a sudden I have two different species of caterpillar on it and possibly hints of scale. Will definitely be doing a dormant spray next winter.

I don’t know if these pests are responsible for the bizarre manner of growth on some of the new needles or not and I need some help with an ID on the disease/pest and possible treatment suggestions. This Medusa like needle growth is actually only occurring on the lowest buds of the tree, the only candles on the tree that I didn’t pinch. I wonder if this is related. Maybe I removed the pest on the other candles when I pinched them?

Some pictures plus the random caterpillars.

 

[coh]

The second photo is most likely sawfly larvae. I usually get a few of these each season and will just pick them off when I notice them. I would think any of the standard pesticides for chewing insects/caterpillars would work. Not sure what the first one is. Also not sure about the distorted shoots in the last 2 pics, could be fungal, could be some kind of insect within the shoot tips (thrips?). Hopefully someone else can offer some advice on that.

Edit to add - sawfly eggs can look like scale, see the images here: http://www.plantpath.cornell.edu/Trees/EuroPsawf.html

 

[Mike Hennigan]

The second photo is most likely sawfly larvae. I usually get a few of these each season and will just pick them off when I notice them. I would think any of the standard pesticides for chewing insects/caterpillars would work. Not sure what the first one is. Also not sure about the distorted shoots in the last 2 pics, could be fungal, could be some kind of insect within the shoot tips (thrips?). Hopefully someone else can offer some advice on that.

Edit to add - sawfly eggs can look like scale, see the images here: http://www.plantpath.cornell.edu/Trees/EuroPsawf.html

Yea the larvae were all squashed after the photos. RIP. Good to know what sawfly larvae look like. The other species of caterpillar was larger and I found two of those, with little personal webbed tent dwellings. Though it’s funny I couldn’t seem to see what they had been chewing on. Didn’t look like the needles around their dwellings had been attacked.

Yea hopefully someone has some intel on these mutated needles.

 

[petegreg]

Mike, you see there are no real candles on the pics attached. Is it same on entire tree?

I've got two of my scots pines looking same. Two that were left unprotected on my balcony in winter. So my guess is the roots suffered some (minor?) damage caused by cold or overwatering. I'll mulch them in a garden next time, because the rest that spent winter mulched has actually 10-12 cm long shoots.

 

[theone420]

The first one looks like some sort of moth larvae to me.

 

[Mike Hennigan]

Mike, you see there are no real candles on the pics attached. Is it same on entire tree?

I've got two of my scots pines looking same. Two that were left unprotected on my balcony in winter. So my guess is the roots suffered some (minor?) damage caused by cold or overwatering. I'll mulch them in a garden next time, because the rest that spent winter mulched has actually 10-12 cm long shoots.

Hey, thanks for your response, there were candles, and then they started growing like this. All the rest of the candles on the tree, most of them, are extending and putting out normal looking needles. I can take pictures of those when I get home. The tree is growing quite vigorously, the pot was mulched in and roots were protected this past weekend winter. It was also protected from wind. So I really don’t think that was the issue.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I saw a scots pine today with needles the length of two hands (close to 30cm). The rest of the tree had the usual size needles but just a few branches threw off some serious ones.
The thickness was different too, these were about 3-4mm, whereas normal needles are closer to half of that.

It must have been some hormonal balancing issue, possibly a response to local stress (I have read that some plants double their genomic dna after cutting, so the new growth can become twice as big because there's double the amount of instructions given.). It's fairly common in herbaceous plants. But in pines, it's just weird.
Please note that this is speculation.

 

[Potawatomi13]

As for wierd growth this was seen sometimes on regrown(second growth)sprouts on past Scots I had. I called it over exuberant growth.

 

[sorce]

have read that some plants double their genomic dna after cutting, so the new growth can become twice as big because there's double the amount of instructions given

The candles on this Mugo didn't grow twice as big...but the needles sure did.

Maybe because the candle length had already been determined when cut in spring.

This is interesting...

I wonder if I can find the cutting time that makes the candles get twice as long....

That would tell when candle length gets determined which can be huge!

Interesting.

Sorce