Question
Hi Jim,
I have a 4 yr. old Fat Albert Blue spruce that has suddenly (within the last 5 days) went from perfect apparent health, to the needles browning from the trunk out!! This is the entire tree, except for ~2' from the top. It also only appears to be the inside 50% of the needles, so far....the outside of the branches have lost their blueish color and are now a darker green, but appear to be healthy right now.
We live in Kentucky and have had an unusually wet/ cool summer, but everything has just thrived, considering we usually have severe droughts in summer. We always fertilize with tree stakes in the spring and only use evergreen stakes on this tree.
I am at a complete loss, since this happened so suddenly and evenly around the tree. I have examined the tree, to the best of my ability, and do not see any type of insects, yellowing, or anything else abnormal. Considering it has been so damp, I doubt that spider mites would be the culprit, but then again, I am no expert.
If you have ANY ideas, I would be so very grateful...this is my favorite tree and I will be sick if I lose it.
Thanks again!
Lee
Answer
Contrary to popular opinion, evergreen trees do not keep their needles indefinitely, they
just do not drop them all at once. The needles usually fall off the tree after two or three years.
Evergreen trees grow a new set of needles in the spring and drop their oldest (innermost) set
of needles in the fall, usually late-September or October.
Sometimes an evergreen tree may be under stress (hot summer,lack of water, too much water, etc.) and may shed two or three sets of inner needles, which makes the natural needle-drop more noticeable. Needle drop, in the center or bottom of a tree, is not life threatening to the tree (just to the homeowner). There is a fungi called needle cast that will infect the old needles and cause them to drop faster and seemingly all at once. It may have a touch of this also but this is not a problem to the health of the tree.
As long as the needle drop is the inner needles and not the ones on the ends of the branches everything is normal.
