Mountain Pine Beetle

Today we want to post a couple of pictures of Mountain Pine Beetle attack on pines. We came across those pines in Castle Rock.  You can see a lot of pitch tubes coming out the place where the mountain pine beetle was trying to bore into the tree. What happens is when the Mountain Pine Beetle attacks a pine, the tree sends out the sap into this location and tries to push the beetle back out. Sometimes, when you look closely, you can actually find a beetle that has been pushed out by a tree. To find out if the beetle actually got into the tree, you need to chip a little bit of bark to see if there is any beetle or developing larvae under the bark. Often times, when a tree is healthy and you do not have a large population of the mountain pine beetle in the area, then possibly tree is healthy enough to pitch out the beetles. Mountain Pine Beetle attacks ponderosa, lodgepole, and limber pines.

Other signs of mountain pine beetle attack are saw dusting, browning of the canopy, blue stain fungus.

Once the Mountain Pine Beetle successfully gets into the tree, nothing could be done to save that tree. After a beetle lays eggs, larvae start feeding in inner bark of the tree. Inner bark is vascular system of the tree. It transports sugars and nutrients up and down the tree. By feeding inside the inner bark beetle cuts off that vascular system and that girdles the tree.

Another way that beetle kills a pine tree is through blue stain fungus. Mountain Pine Beetle carries blue stain fungus on its head. The fungus restricts trees’ ability to produce resin pressure to produce pitch tubes to fend off beetle attack.

The best thing you can do to fight the mountain pine beetle attack is to keep your trees healthy and protected. Deep root watering and deep root fertilizing will keep your trees healthy in drought conditions. Drought stress can weaken trees’ ability to fight off the mountain pine beetle attack. Have your trees properly pruned and thinned. Apply preventative insecticide to your most valuable trees. You can never be able to replace large trees.

If you have questions about mountain pine or ips beetle spraying, please do not hesitate to contact our friendly team at SprayTech.