Black Turpentine Beetles kill Pines

Black Turpentine Beetles are destroying Japanese Black Pines And are now boring in to other pine species as well. I have seen recently Tanyosho Pine, Eastern White Pine, and Scot’s Pine with pitch tubes of frass from successful beetle attacks.

Once this beetle invades the pine, the tree is usually doomed. I have had some success digging the beetle out with a knife. I follow that up with a trunk spray of a long residual material like Onyx with the active ingredient Bifenthrin or Astro with the active ingredient Permethrin.

A treatment with a systemic soil product containing Imidicloprid is also important for long term protection.

As much as I hate to use chemicals, this one is tough to treat organically. I have heard that orange oil works on turpentine beetles but I have not tried it because of label issues with orange oil in New York State.

The turpentine beetle is a close relative of the mountain pine beetle and the southern pine beetle which wreak havoc on trees in the midwest and the south respectively.

As with all of these beetles, their attack alone does not kill the tree. They all spread a rapidly growing deadly fungal disease called Blue Stain Fungus.

Blue Stain Fungus is carried by the beetle. The fungal mycelium (strands) grow in beetle galleries then invades and clogs phloem tissue leading to a quick death.

Since prevention is the only way to save a tree, here are a few tips to keep your pine trees from being a victim:

1. Get rid of any infected trees including all resulting wood and stumps.
2. Protect the trees that you want to keep with well timed treatments of imidicloprid and bifenthrin or permethrin.
3. Do not prune trees at time of year that beetles are active.
4. Water trees during drought.
5. Mulch around the tree with natural pine straw
5. Recreate a pine forest soil around the trees by inoculating soil with compost tea, mycorrhizae, and biostimulants.

If you cant do it yourself than call in an arborist that follows a similar recipe. Be weary of spending money on trees riddled with pitch tubes! These trees are likely too far gone. If there are less than five pitch tubes on a large tree and it means alot for you to keep it then go ahead and treat it.