Yes, I've noticed this for the past few years. I believe there are several fungal diseases in the area.

I suspect road salt. I also wonder if the lack of snow last winter combined with the Spring drought has the trees thirsty and undermined their ability to sprout new growth this Spring. I've noticed this in the last few months on trees that looked great a few months ago.

Or it could be the dreaded White Pine Blister Rust that has afflicted my own pine forest.

Eep! Any way to distinguish between these possibilities? Does White Pine Blister Rust affect other kinds of pine trees?


Anyway, I've noticed problems in roadside Austrian Pine and more recently White Pine.

I've noticed this, too, all over Newton. I have some wee eastern white pines on my back hill, and I notice they have some white fuzz on them too. I wonder if that might indicate "pinus adelgids"? Anyone seen lady bugs for sale around here? Or maybe the white fuzz is related to whatever is causing large branches to brown around town?

Apparently the folks at UMass have noticed this. lalala (6b - Metro Boston) for the win. It turns out it is fungal pathogens that were spread by Spring rains last year and thrived on trees stressed by the summer drought.

White Pine Decline

Ed, White Pine Blister Rust only effects white pines, but there are probably other fungal issues for other pines.

One more possibility since many of you are farther south, so a bit earlier than I am. In my area the white pines are currently putting out a bumper crop of pollen cones. Between the yellow-brown caused by the pollen cones on and the dying of old needles that are being shed at this time of year, most of my white pines look decidedly brown. However, in my case it's completely normal at this time of year, but just a bit more extreme that usual. In a few weeks when the old needles are done shedding and the pollen cones have done their thing and dropped off, and new needles are growing, I expect my white pines to be back to their usual green. We didn't have an unusually wet spring here, so no fungus issues.

For the mass area, The umass extension service recently released put the results of a comprehensive pathogen an d climactic /weather pattern analysis . As stated above, the decline is due to a combination of weather related stress snd opportunistic pathogens. There's no remedy at hand right nowThe special report is at the bottom of the June 3 report that Claire kindly sends in to this forum when it is published