Worm takes toll on Japanese black pines in N.C.

COROLLA, N.C.

Scattered throughout Corolla neighborhoods and along N.C. 12, Japanese black pine trees are dying by the dozens.

Brown pine trees stand out from the greenery of live oaks, wax myrtles and loblolly pines. One here, two next to the beach house, three or four there along the highway.

Dick Garvey pointed to two large tree trunks purposely cut close to the ground in the Corolla neighborhood of Villages at Ocean Hill.

"You can see these were good-sized trees," said Garvey, president of North Beach Resort Management Inc. "They go so fast once they're infected."

In a tourist community that is always ready to battle overdevelopment and protect its natural beauty, the dying pines have become eyesores.

"We've cut them all over our neighborhood," said Walter Stiff, a resident of Villages at Ocean Hill.

"They're dying all over the place."

Popular coastal ornamental trees, Japanese black pines are under attack in Corolla from pinewood nematode, a small worm that attacks the root system, said Tim Leah Jr., owner of Leah's Landscape Service Inc.

Pine sawyer beetles spread nematodes from tree to tree, according to online pine disease research published by North Carolina State University.

The first sign of trouble comes when needles begin turning brown, Leah said. Two weeks later, the tree turns entirely brown.

"It happens so fast there's nothing you can do about it," Leah said.

Not much can be done about these nematodes except cut down the infected trees and dispose of them, said Dan McCarthy, a ranger with the North Carolina Division of Forest Resources assigned to Currituck County.

Pinewood nematodes do not pose a major threat to other pines, he said.

Leah began seeing trees die about five years ago. In that time, he has not seen any loblolly pines get infected.

Leah has treated some trees with success by spraying an insecticide around the root system.

With older trees or trees already weakened, the only recourse is to cut them down, he said. Chemicals have to be used sparingly in the sandy soils there.

Japanese black pines are small, pretty trees with short needles and small cones that are able to tolerate sand and salt, Leah said.

In Villages at Ocean Hill, where about 20 of 200 property owners live year-round, Garvey makes sure infected trees in community-owned areas are cut down.

For trees dying on private property, Garvey has sent letters asking owners to remove them, with mixed results. On Sandcastle Drive alone, there were about 10 trees either dead or dying.

At one house, an old black pine that reached nearly to the top of the multiple-story house has been dead a while. At another house, there were three stumps next to the front porch, leftovers from dead black pines.

"Probably half the houses on this street have had problems," Garvey said.

Despite the severity and the difficulty of control, Japanese black pines will survive here as they have other places, Leah said.

The nematode will pass through a cycle and move on, he said. He still offers the pines.

"I let people know what's going on," he said. "We plant new, young trees and hope for the best."

Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com