weird problem with spruce

We have two big spruce in our yard and one of them is doing great and the one next to it has turned brown and many needles have fallen off. The needles don't have spots or any signs of rust or fungus, they just are totally brown. Some green needles are right next to the brown ones, but the majority are brown and eventually they fall off. We did have a wet spring and early summer. I'm totally mystified about what is going on with the one spruce but not the other. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Could it be spider mites or white flies? We're having that problem here in Ohio. I think there's also a beetle of some kind that's attacking evergreens in the area. I have something doing this to my dwarf alberta spruce, so I go out periodically and spray it down with the hose. In this case, the needles are browning from the inside out to the end of the branches.

It doesn't sound like a lack of water issue, which is another reason for browning needles.

good luck.

Essex: We've had similar problems with Blue Spruces, ours were infested with Bagworms,,,totally denuding the foliage...have you checked for Bagworm 'cocoons' hanging from the branches, camouflaged with the brown needles?

This message was edited Aug 19, 2006 5:26 AM

Sorry, meant to add this picture to help you ID them

Could be mites, needle fungus, herbicide drift, or somnething else, but at this point it looks like you've lost a beautiful tree. I hope you don't lose the other one too.

Guy S.

Spruces often recover from defoliation, thp' they look very ratty for 2 or 3 years until they get a good covering of new growth.

If it was over here, I'd say the most likely cause would be Elatobium abietinum (spruce aphid), but that's unlikely to be a problem in NY unless you had an exceptionally mild winter last winter.

Resin

Is the very top of the other tree turning brown too?

This message was edited Aug 19, 2006 10:39 AM

The other tree is fine -- the brown at the top are the cones. We did have a mild winter last year. As suggested by several people...I wonder if we have spruce spider mites as there are small remnants of webs on the branches. However I don't see any evidence of eggs and the needles are all brown without any of the stippling I've seen in photos of mite damage.
Any other advice here would be much appreciated.

Did you do the "tap test"? Hold a white paper under an affected twig and tap it hard, then see if any mites are crawling around on the paper.

Guy S.

Essex, I hope your tree is not infested with THOSE bagworms! It's late in the season to spray them to be effective. But you can hand pick those "boogers!" Make sure you stomp them good... or the worms will wiggle out and infest a nearby tree.. My neighbor says you can drop them in a bucket of hot soapy water as you pick them off! It took us a few weeks to hand pick most of them and that was with daily checks. We are now checking weekly. There is a fancy name(thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis) for them and it's recommended that you spray them with BT (bacillus thuringiensis) in June to prevent your spruce and junipers from infestations or in mid-June to prevent the destruction you are now seeing. I didn't try the hot soapy water as the pumpkins really enjoyed stomping the life out of them!! :0)

This message was edited Aug 20, 2006 10:23 PM

This message was edited Aug 20, 2006 10:25 PM

Luckily I don't have bagworms. However, I tried the tap test suggested above and found two kinds of critters. One looks very much like a spider but it moves so fast I can't get a long look. It's light brown and trails a think web like a spider. The other is light green and doesn't move fast at all. It looks like the photos I've seen of a spruce spider mite. I'm wondering if the spidery thing is a predator or another part of the problem.

If it moves fast, chances are it is a predator, doing its bit to try to solve the problem

Resin