Question
I live in NH, and have a 20+ year old spruce that has been growing well, except that I just noticed that the leader is all brown. The rest of the tree looks fine. Should I be concerned?

Answer
Something has killed the leader of the tree--the most common would be a beetle boring into the stem. The tree will over time grow a new leader (one of the side branches will grow and become the new leader) but you will have a slight crook in the trunk where this took place. The dead leader can be pruned off if you can reach it or it will rot and fall on its own. This will not spread to the other branches so the tree should be ok as far as it not dying.