Question
QUESTION: I'm so very sad to say that my white pine has the blisters that spew yellow-orange powder in the early spring.  It is on the trunk of a probably 5 y/o tree.  It seems quite healthy and has good growth above the rust area that encircles the trunk.  I've scrubbed it every year for two years and dowsed it with Safer's anti fungal spray every chance I get.  By summer, it seems to be crusted over.  I hope I can abate it, but all sites predict doom and say to just remove the tree.  
Has anyone tried other antifungal agents?? Tea Tree preparations?  Anti athletes foot cream??  Is the tree truely doomed, or is there hope.  It looks so healthy otherwise.

ANSWER: IF the rust gall has encircled the trunk there is little that can be done. You can try fertilizing the tree with 10-10-10  fertilizer at the rate of 1 lb per inch of trunk diameter scattered round the tree and watered in good. This will help the tree get more nutrients. IF the gall does not encircle the trunk you can remove the bark down to the wood out to about 2 inches beyond the gall and over time the tree will grow bark back over the wound. DO this only if there will be enough bark left to not girdle the trunk.

The orange are spore of the rust fungi. Rusts take two hosts the spore you are seeing will not reinfect the pine.  The rust fungus cannot spread from pine to pine but requires an alternate host, Ribes species, (currants and gooseberries, collectively called 搑ibes?, to complete the disease cycle. They will grow on another plant and produce spores that will grow on the pine. Any galls on the limbs should be cut off to keep the gall from spreading down the branches to the trunk. There is no fungicide that will control the gall. The fungi is in the woody part of the tree under the bark and what you are seeing is essentially the "flower" of the fungi.  

Damage, symptoms and biology
Blister rust is a very important exotic disease that kills white pine of all ages. The fungus first attacks the needles in the fall and many tiny yellow dots appear on the needles the following spring. Over the next year or two, the fungus spreads toward the branches and trunk. In mid-summer, orange pustules develop on the bole and exude a liquid containing a first type of spores. The following spring, these spores cause white blisters to form on the bark. The white fruiting bodies give rise to a canker that keeps growing. The foliage above the canker yellows and then turns reddish brown. The mortality of the infected upper part causes the branch or stem to break, thus providing a point of entry for the decay fungus. The white fruiting bodies in turn produce orange spores that will be disseminated by the wind and infect plants in the family Ribes (red currant, gooseberry and black currant). Many generations of spores successively live on the undersurface of the leaves of plants in this family, thereby promoting the rapid spread of the disease over considerable distances. Finally, in late summer or early fall, some filamentous fruiting bodies develop on the leaves of the family Ribes. A last type of spores is produced and serves to transmit the disease to other white pines.

CommentsWhite pine blister rust is a disease that was introduced from Europe at the turn of the 20th century. Economically, it is one of the most important forest diseases in North America. It brought about a decrease in reforestation of white pine in Quebec, despite the species' considerable commercial value.

In many regions of Canada, the volume of white pine has been depleted to the point where it is no longer considered a viable commercial species. In eastern Canada, research (Dr. G. Laflamme, SCF-CFL) has shown that pruning of low branches, both infected and uninfected, could reduce the incidence of this rust in plantations where Ribes are absent or rare.

White pine blister rust is the only stem rust of white pine and can therefore be easily distinguished from other similar rusts caused by Cronartium on the basis of this host preference. Basal stem cankers producing resin might also be confused with symptoms of Armillaria root rot, which can be distinguished by the presence of white mycelial fans beneath the bark.

Life cycle: White pine blister rust alternates between five-needle pines and Ribes spp. (currants/gooseberries). Infection takes place through needles in the fall. The fungus grows into and down the branch toward the stem. It grows in the phloem and bark with no visible symptoms for at least three years before spores are produced. In the spring of the 3rd or 4th year, spermatia are formed, followed by the production of aeciospores in white blisters that break through the bark. Aeciospores are capable of infecting only Ribes spp. Approximately 10 days after infection, urediniospore development starts on the leaves and continues throughout the summer. Urediniospores are able to reinfect Ribes spp., thus intensifying the disease on this host. In the fall, teliospores and basidiospores are produced on Ribes spp. that carry the disease back to pine, there by completing the life cycle.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Would you be able to identify a pine tree for me?  It is a two needle leaf and striking in that the outer "patchy" bark reveals a reddish bark underneath.  The branches all come from the same "plane' on the trunk, and the needles are all out towards the ends of long, horizontal branches.  
That's the best I can do, but it's a lovely tree, and may not be native to my Vancouver Island area.

Answer
Several that fit your description. Here are some pictures of the two needle pines in your area.

Red Pine
http://cnre.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=110

Lodgepole pine
http://cnre.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=177

Jack Pine
http://cnre.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=100

It could be any of these are one not native there. IF it is in a yard it could have been planted as an ornamental and will be hard to ID.