Anybody ever had to deal with the Southern Pine Beetle?

[jjdward]

I have three huge pines in my yard that I know are over 50 years old and one is showing signs of disease/pests. From what I can tell from a quick research is that it is infested with the Southern Pine Beetle. I was wondering if there was anybody who had dealt with them before and if the tree can be saved once the needles have turned brown. Weird thing is that it seemed to happen really quick. I guess after seeing them every day I didn't pay much attention till just a few days ago. Any experience?

 

[gabirder]

Unfortunately, you need to get the tree down. Maybe they want spread. They have gotten 3 of my trees.

 

[heybarb]

We were told that if we wanted to save the other trees, that we needed to remove the dead/dying trees - AND FAST!!

 

[zazouse]

We have a problem with them here,no matter how many infected trees we cut down more get infected with the darn things.

I have no control over the neighboring woods with infected trees so the bettles continuse to migrate to my pines, i wouild love to harvest all the pines here again but the fact is it would mess up my property which i am not ready to deal with again, it has been 15 years sence the last harvest and it has taken every bit of that to clean up the mess they left behind.

 

[Stumpy]

Speed is the thing here. Get them cut down quickly. The longer they sit, the more dangerous they become. They came break off at any point up the tree.

We live deep in the woods surrounded by lots of huge pines and hardwoods. Many pines have fallen, hitting our fence, dog houses, power lines and almost my dogs and I once. Early some mornings you can hear the "crunch crunch" of the beetles.

 

[zazouse]

Stumpy,
You can hear the beetles? really? what do you do put your ear up to the tree and listen? i never heard them but i never thought i could hear them so how do i do that?

 

[7L Farm]

Pine trees are the worst. If you've ever been through a hurricane their the first trees to blow down & do extensive damage to everything around them.

 

[bwalden]

Contact your local county agricurtural extenion agent. They can reccomend a course of treatment if any available for treating exhisting infestations. I know the chemical Lindane used to be pretty effective but would be difficult to obtain these days and it is pretty tough to treat large trees also.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Your local Forestry Service will be able to advise you. If you can't find a contact number your local Extension Agent will have it.

Unfortunately the only thing that will really help is plenty of rain.

 

[zazouse]

Pine trees are the worst. If you've ever been through a hurricane their the first trees to blow down & do extensive damage to everything around them.

Actually my oak tree take the hardest hit here, they get knocked over as their root system is on the top of the ground where as a pine has a big tap root that goes way down in the ground so the pines here just get the tops broken off and the oaks fall over and altot of them here were t-bones on other trees making removal nearly impossible till they rot enough to be released from the other tree.