Japanese White Pine health concerns

[raffaelbaer]

Hello together,

just placed fertilizer on my white pine, and I came to notice, that mostly the old foliage has been turning brown over the last 1.5 months, I was just wondering if this is normal behaviour...
For explation it was quite rainy the last days, so maybe it was overwatered (slightly yellow tips on the needles => indication of overwatering), it wasnt staying that wet though, pretty high drainage mix...

The Pine was bought last year, it was in a really small japanese training pot, with highly neglected rootball, of course this spring I repoted it...

On my provided pictures below you can see, that the buds all are swelling and some even started breaking, however with very small needles, probably because the tree doesnt have that much roots last year when I got it.

So about the foliage, for most part the "younger" growth / needles look quite good, also I saw some new growth coming which should be a good sing, however Im still wondering if its normal for white pines too loose that many old needles in spring!

Thanks for any Help!

 

[JudyB]

These are all 3rd year needles that the tree naturally sheds. They normally turn color and fall (or you brush them off) in late fall to allow the sun to get into all the branches in the interior. You should gently paintbrush them off now so the light can get in there. Looks like you have nice new tip buds, so no worries there. You'll want to make sure to get it as much sun as possible to get interior bud possibilities.

 

[raffaelbaer]

These are all 3rd year needles that the tree naturally sheds. They normally turn color and fall (or you brush them off) in late fall to allow the sun to get into all the branches in the interior. You should gently paintbrush them off now so the light can get in there. Looks like you have nice new tip buds, so no worries there. You'll want to make sure to get it as much sun as possible to get interior bud possibilities.

Al right, that sounds promising, however I was still why this is happening right now in spring and not in the fall...

 

[Shibui]

Early needle drop is usually a sign of stress. The tree is dropping the older needles first in an effort to keep the younger needles and stay alive.

There are lots of things that could cause this so you'll need to look at recent care to try to find one or more possibilities.
Mention of a very small pot and being root bound rings alarm bells for me. That's a recipe for disaster because it gets really hard to water properly and even though you think you are watering regularly the water just can't penetrate into the centre.
Recent repotting may be another stress factor. The root pruning could cause something like this. How much root did you remove when repotting? Could also relate to the type of potting soil used this time or other factors around the repot. Care after repotting?
Watering in spring is a major challenge. The tree's demand for water increases rapidly, days get warmer and longer but we're not always ready to increase watering quickly enough to keep up. Even after nearly 40 years I still find a few trees that dehydrate each spring because I don't change from winter to spring quickly enough.
There's probably many more possibilities.

Healthy recent needles as a very good sign so I don't think the tree is in any immediate danger. I understand you're anxious to find out what happened to prevent if happening again but the reality is we probably won't be able to pin this down as we can't assess all the factors and you may not recognise some of the factors and so forget to include it in your description.
Maybe you can walk us through the recent care and the repot as much as possible to see if anyone can spot any possibilities?

 

[bwaynef]

I only see 1 year's needles that look healthy. I forget if JWP holds 2 or 3 years of needles. I suspect that if this started in the spring, its an indication of some stress.

 

[raffaelbaer]

Ive got some updates on the pine!

Today Ive taken a look at the roots





In the pictures above I already loosened up the roots a lot, and removed the probably really old akadama from the center,
As of my knowledge from when I repotted the tree I didnt quite do the repot correctly, I just cut some random long circling roots!
Now Ive put the track back into its pot, placed it in a shadier position and removed any moss and fertilizer.

Do the roots look rooten? For me I couldnt really tell, they where quite sturdy and didnt smell rotened.

Here are also some more images on the current foliage state


So I guess I can only hope best for this tree... But would be great If any of you maybe now, If the roots look fine, for me personally I would say 70 / 30 survival, since the needle los is quite high, however I cant quite tell if the roots look fine and if there still even is a chance of reviving it...

Thanks for any of your further help!

 

[bwaynef]

I don't see rot, but I'm a little surprised I don't see white growing tips on at least some of the roots. This link shows you're probably 4-6 weeks behind me, weather-wise though, so it could be that your tree isn't stirring from dormancy yet. I'd suspect you've got the percentages for survival flipped though with the needle browning still progressing.

 

[raffaelbaer]

Though the weird thing is, here in south-germany, February, March and also junary have been the warmest since the 60s where data collection started, tomorrow we get around 27°C ~ 80 Imperial Fahrenheit, The plant was standing on one of the sunset spots on my property, the soil was also wet quite often, so no chance of it drying off...

I will closely watch the needle browning, and keep you updated, maybe in 2 weeks i will know if the tree is dead, however after I inspected the roots i think its definitely no root problem... we will see

Oh and also for now I will leave the tree in shade for a week to avoid any further repotting stage... will move it into its sunny spot soon again..

I don't see rot, but I'm a little surprised I don't see white growing tips on at least some of the roots. This link shows you're probably 4-6 weeks behind me, weather-wise though, so it could be that your tree isn't stirring from dormancy yet. I'd suspect you've got the percentages for survival flipped though with the needle browning still progressing.

 

[raffaelbaer]

I meant suniest spot!

 

[Paradox]

I also don't see indication of rot in that root ball but agree with @bwaynef that the lack of newly growing root tips is a big concern.

Those roots look very dry and with the newest needles turning brown...I'm sorry but I think this tree is probably dead already.

 

[raffaelbaer]

I also don't see indication of rot in that root ball but agree with @bwaynef that the lack of newly growing root tips is a big concern.

Those roots look very dry and with the newest needles turning brown...I'm sorry but I think this tree is probably dead already.

Okay understand thanks for your engangement, but is there any evidence on why this happened or why the roots are not growing when supposed to, I didnt seem to see any mycelium growing though...

 

[Paradox]

Okay understand thanks for your engangement, but is there any evidence on why this happened or why the roots are not growing when supposed to, I didnt seem to see any mycelium growing though...

Hard to say for sure but it's a very small rootball for that tree IMO, and it does not seem to have a lot of feeder roots.

I don't know what your weather was like last year but if it was in a really small pot, it could have easily dried out too much or not been watered enough. That seems to be a likely scenario to me.