Approximately 20 years ago we planted about 6,000 trees as part of our CRP contract, mostly Norway Spruce, some White Spruce, Blue Spruce and Oak. The trees have done extremely well until the end of June this year when I started to notice a few turning brown on the tops. I contacted the local DNR forester who is not very familiar with this type of tree and after looking at the trees was unable to come up with a diagnosis.

Another regional DNR forestry health person came out and also was not able to determine the cause. Pictures and samples have been taken and sent off but still no diagnosis. Supposedly some experts from Northern MN are supposed to come out in 2 weeks. Mean while I would guess that over 50% of my Norway Spruce trees have been affected and I suspect are dying. Although a few of the Blue Spruce look a little yellow in places, they do not seem to be affected. When I first noticed the problem, I went to the internet and thought it look very similar to the yard trees dying from Dupont's new lawn chemical.

I would like to send you pictures of the trees if that is possible. I feel helpless and suspect I will lose all the trees.

Greetings Janice:

You are currently doing as much as you can to identify the root cause of your Norway spruce decline as you're receiving on-site, hands-on technical assistance from professional foresters, entomologists, and plant pathologists. Unfortunately, Illinois has far less capacity than your home state of Minnesota with regard to technical forestry assistance.

All you can do now right now is wait for laboratory results and wait for additional input from your state forestry agency. It is also very important to remind you and our readers out that even the best professionals –- whether they are professional foresters, plant pathologists, botanists, ecologists, medical physicians, veterinarians, marine biologists, etc. –- are sometimes never able to positively identify the root cause of biological decline or mortality in living things. And as hard as that is for some people to accept – that’s life and that’s Mother Nature!

Best of luck!