Graft failure - nope

I see pines in the wild, 15-20 ft. tall looking perfectly healthy, then all of a sudden, they turn brown and die. :?

Some were planted seedlings from the state nursery and some just wild woods pines from seeds.

There are a great many insects and diseases that can kill pine trees quickly. Plus, variances in climate can stress trees and make them more susceptible to insects and diseases. I live in a naturally variable climate. Some years we get plenty of rain, then we have major droughts that last for several years. Lots of Afghan pines, which do quite well with drought, were planted locally and grew well for decades. However, extended late summer rain set up a disease that killed 99% of these pines within weeks.

There is a good chance that what killed your pine was mulch. You should NEVER place mulch against the base of any plant—trees, shrubs, annuals or perennials. You are supposed to set a transplant at the same depth it had in its pot, but if you cover that over with mulch it is the same as transplanting too deeply, especially after the mulch settles and compacts.

I wish we could solve this mystery....

Bill is thinking nope to graft failure

I'm thinking nope to mulch - the mulch is pulled perfectly away from the base

I'm also thinking nope to planted too deep - its planted slightly high

I'm also thinking nope to soil type - its a well drained sandy loam - pines love the hell out of it

Its mainly the white pine group that has croaked out of the blue

Sorry just caught this comment

You are supposed to set a transplant at the same depth it had in its pot

No you are supposed to locate the ROOT flare and plant level or slightly above ground. Usually higher is better to mitigate settling. 99% of the time the soil level in the pot is wrong and needs to corrected when planted.

My observations of these pines dying include Pinus strobus, Pinus resinosa and Pinus banksiana.

For me it's just the5-needle pines that go without a clue. For the rest I can usually figure out a cause, which 9 times out of 10 is the root ball drying out in the first year or two.

I find that the normally suggested time that it takes a plant to settle in (root) takes a couple more years for me, some take off almost immediately like Swiss Stone pine.

Yep its Pinus parviflora - was in the ground for 3 years. Pinus parviflora and Pinus strobus are the ones that spontaneously drop dead for me.

Bill, that's my experience as well with wild P. strobus. I'll be driving along and see one dead seedling among hundreds of healthy plants. While it doesn't explain Whaas's situation, this seemingly random death of a wild seedling is a regular occurrence.

it kind of does ... keep in mind that Pinus strobus is the universal understock for 5-needled pine in the U.S. ... that species is notorious for not liking to live in pots.

I can't point to Strobus being the worst, because over the years, not that many trees I noticed have had this happen. Certainly not enough to figure percentages. Then there's all the variables, drought, gophers, disease etc. that were never looked into.

I'm positive none were grafted. :-)

There's always a reason. Otherwise the plant wouldn't be dead.

There's always a reason. Otherwise the plant wouldn't be dead.

Whan Sara posted a thread about a japanese black pine cultivar, I was going to comment that most of those on east coast, at least, are dead or dying from needle blight. Even though they used to be far more common. So not a disease free genus, to be sure. I guess it is less a problem in her area?

i have no problem with black pines - they tend to be very vigorous here.

actually might be multiple things that attack them around here. A long time MD nursery owner told me NOT to plant them.

https://www.pilotonline.com/news/environment/article_deb9ca25-02cc-5c77-b360-df9099b35c40.html

Yeah, davidrt, pretty much every J black pine has been killed in west MD.

It could also be White Pine Needle Damage, a syndrome with 3 native and 1 exotic fungal agents that is affecting wild EWP in the Northeast:

https://www.spotlightnews.com/news/2019/08/22/dec-concerned-about-white-pines-decline/

I'm baffled too having seen several transplanted white pines die quickly for no apparent reason even after they grew and put on size for two years previous. Other pines I planted continue to thrive less than 50 feet away.

In the original post we are being shown a dead plant that is still in the ground, may not even have had the roots looked at before production of a list of "nopes" was generated - anything that has been killed by a water mold for instance may often need to be sampled and tested before identification of the specific causal agent(s) becomes possible. Tested as in placing tissue fragments on agar and seeing what grows out of them. And the most common cause of plant top death in cultivated settings is problems with the roots - many woody plants can lose the entire top and come back from the root crown, but none can do the reverse.

This is strange year, There have several places where established pine tree hedges, 15 to 20' tall just suddenly died within weeks. There were two 50 year old two oaks, about 10 miles a part, that died within weeks of each other.

With the oaks I call the county extension agent, and he came out an looked at them and could find no cause. As my grandson said when he was 2 and ask why a balloon went up: They just do.

The oak issue could have been oak wilt. Brother's 150 yr old white oak died from it.

https://oakwilt.org/tree-diseases/oak-wilt/

This is strange year, There have several places where established pine tree hedges, 15 to 20' tall just suddenly died within weeks

Two relevant questions are:

What part of the country?

What species of pine?