AU Receives Pine Needle Blight Research Funding

A research team in Auburn University’s College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment (CFWE) is working to find solutions to an increasing threat to pine forests—needle blight. Through a $2.1 million U.S. Forest Service grant, the group is aiming to determine the impacts on productivity and also the biological causes of needle blight. Insect pests and fungal diseases are a great concern to the forest industry, as costs associated with damage caused by non-native pests and pathogens within forests throughout the U.S. in 2000 were estimated to be valued at approximately $4.2 billion annually.

The Alabama Forestry Commission (AFC) has been receiving phone calls since early spring from landowners and the public regarding pine needles suddenly turning brown. Many of these calls have come from counties in the northwest and northeast regions of Alabama. The disease has been confirmed in 36 of 67 Alabama counties. Historically, the disease has only infected longleaf pines, or Pinus palustris, but in the last few years, the disease also has begun to infect loblolly pines, or Pinus taeda, in young and mature stands.

The AFC notes the first sign of infection is discoloration of the needles. Infected needles will contain circular lesions with a brown spot surrounded by a yellow halo. Over time, the infected area will turn brown with a dark red or dark green border. The discoloration begins in the lower portion of the crown and moves up as the disease spreads by rain and wind events. An easy way to identify the disease is if the pine needles look as if they have been scorched by fire, even though there has been no burn. The cause for this change in behavior of the disease has yet to be determined, but it can be speculated that it may be a new sub-species that has evolved from the original fungal pest, according to the AFC.

“An investment in mitigating forest pests, such as those associated with needle blight requires adaptive management geared to prevention and remediation that provide economically sound solutions,” says Lori Eckhardt, a CFWE professor of forest health and team leader. Through their research, landowners and forest managers may be able to predict future timber revenues more precisely from affected stands and adjust management activities accordingly.
“We hope to determine the distribution and movement of the needle pathogens, determine if their appearance is due to more aggressive strains and understand the disease cycle and the environmental factors that drive their emergence and distribution,” adds Eckhardt. “Non-native pests and pathogens may not only occur on a large regional scale, but also on isolated acreages. This is vital, as the majority of the seven million acres of pines in Alabama are privately owned.”