Question
Dr. Vann, I had (cut them all down this past week) 4 twenty three year old  balsam firs on my 2 acre zone 5 upstate NY landscaped yard. Three years ago, one 30' tree had a brown branch when the certified arborist came to do the every other year trimming, I asked what it was. He said sometimes that happens and cut it out. He did not sterilize his equipment when going to trim the next tree, so that may have spread the disease or it could be airborn. Last year many more branches had browned and died and we also saw the same progression in our other balsams which are over 250' to 340' from the original diseased tree. This year, the damage was so severe for ornamental trees in a residential area, we had to cut them down.  We suspect the balsams had needlecast disease. We want to plant new evergreens and love Balsam, but do not know if it will be safe to plant new Balsams or if disease lingers in the soil or on fencing. Some of the areas are shady, and it is wet and somewhat cloudy here. We also have Frasier firs and Colorado Blue Spruce on the property. Can you advise us if we can replant balsams or if we should look at more Fraisers or Blue Spruce? Thank you in advance for your advice.

Answer
Jac:
Difficult to say if this was the same disease or not on all the trees.  Some disease organisms can be spread in an airborne fashion and/or from pruning activities.  Best thing to do it to get an accurate diagnosis to start with.  Sometimes internal decay can result in the appearance of dying branches in the tree.  This will progress until the entire tree dies. There are many different disease organisms, literally 1000's. Some prefer specific trees and then there are others that aren't so choosey.

I would suspect that if you replace the Balsams with Balsams, you will probably be OK. Getting the same disease (if it were a disease)is possible but quite remote, especially if you remove all of the previous tree debris.  Burning is a good way to destroy any debris to be on the safe side.  Prevention is always easier than trying to cure a disease, so be sure to especially avoid wounding to the trunks with lawnmowers and string trimmers- they are a death sentence!

Regards
Steve