Pine trees fill a very specific role in the landscape, serving as year-round shade trees as well as windbreaks and privacy barriers. Continue watering throughout the fall, and apply mulchto seal in moisture. If one is fortunate enough to have a blue spruce, properly sited and not showing signs of decline, the best procedure is prevention. Throughout the Midwest, Colorado blue spruces have been showing needle loss, dead branches, and browning foliage. Treatment of the diseases is expensive and not always successful. Unhealthy Mandevilla Plants: How To Treat Mandevilla Disease Problems, Thanksgiving Tradition: Turning Homegrown Pumpkins Into Pie, Growing Thanksgiving Dinner – Must Have Turkey Side Dishes, Interesting Uses For Pecans: What To Do With Pecans, The Bountiful Garden: Bringing The Garden To Thanksgiving. Under ideal conditions, in full sunlight, spruces will grow well, but when environmental factors are unfavorable, they decline rapidly. Many types of fungus cause brown banding in the center of needles, but needles browning in the center of pine trees is not always indicative of any particular fungal disease. While none of these dry spells qualify as a drought, they do put stress on plants. The disease begins on the tree's lower branches and works its way upward. Diseases include Cytospora canker, Rhizosphaera, and Stigmina. As roots die, you may notice your pine tree dying from the inside out. At the end of the summer, some trees started to have yellow foliage. After about five years the entire tree dies. It starts on the inner and lower growth and progresses upward through the tree. The trees were fine this summer, some of them had one or two dried branches; nothing out of ordinary. Always read all directions, since some fungicides can cause discoloration on certain pines. However, if your tree has many small holes bored through branches or the trunk weeps sap or has a sawdust-like material coming from them, it may already be infected. The brown needles eventually fall off, leaving bare branches. Conifer Needles Turning Color: Why Does My Tree Have Discolored Needles, Lower Branches Of Pine Tree Dying: Why Is Pine Tree Drying From Bottom Up, Spruce Needle Rust Control – How To Treat Spruce Needle Rust, Prickly Kale Leaves – Does Kale Have Thorns, Corn Husk Wreath Ideas: How To Make A Corn Husk Wreath, DIY Air Plant Wreaths: Wreath Making With Air Plants, Scab On Apple Trees: Indentifying And Treating Apple Scab Fungus, What Is A Hackberry Tree: Learn About Hackberry Growing. A quick search online lead me to believe this was the cold hardening process. It can take up to 15 months for the needles to show visible symptoms after the initial infection. Eventually, the whole tree drops its needles and dies. With proper siting and care, you should be able to enjoy your blue spruce for many years to come. Fortunately, each dry period has been either preceded or followed by near-record rainfall. Browning of the inner needles on the tree is an early symptom. Water deeply if dry conditions occur, and fertilize each spring. Proper watering should allow this condition to correct itself over time, though the browned needles will never re-green. The damage is caused by a combination of bark beetle tunneling activities and the nematodes that ride along with them into the heart of pine trees. If the tree’s soil is dry to the touch, give it extra water through summer’s dry spells. Insect pests include bagworms and mites. The sad truth is that not all pine tree browning can be stopped and many trees die from this condition. If the tree is planted where the ground stays saturated after a heavy rain, it’s under a death sentence.