Knowledgebase
extreme needle cast, will the tree survive #788595
Asked April 29, 2022, 9:43 PM EDT
I have 3 blue spruce that seemed to have died suddenly from needle cast. I surmised that is the cause but am not certain. They are 15 years old. They have never been robust and they are in terrible soil, but they have reached 12-20 feet in height. We are very close to the first foothills and have bad clay. But we have many other blue spruce that are healthy and have never lost one.
This spring all the needles turned brown and dropped within 1 month. I applied evergreen root fertilizer with a 2 ft root watering hose attachment a few weeks ago.
They look complete dead and scraping the branch reveals no green cambium.
However I noticed many short branches (2") with green needles extending from the trunk.
See photos.
Is it possible the trees will survive? Is there anything I can do?
Larimer County Colorado
Expert Response
Thank you for your question and my apologies for the delay in responding. We've seen limited needle cast, but it's hard to confirm in the lab. But more than likely this is a combination of drought stress, environmental injury, and/or overall stress.
If there aren't any new buds that are supple and starting to push new growth, then the trees are probably lost (especially since you're not seeing any green on the twigs). While this is observational, I've found that spruce are not very drought tolerant, even though they are native species. They seem to prefer even water and don't do well in periods of drought.
That said, I think it's still a wait and see. We're early in the spring and we're delayed by a couple weeks (or more) due to the cool weather. You can make a decision in the next couple of months. If you want to put in resources, you can give them regular water over the next few weeks.
