Extension > Garden > Diagnose a problem > What's wrong with my plant? > Evergreen Trees and Shrubs > Pine > Sticky substance coating needles
Pine > Needles > Sticky substance coating needles
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Pine tortoise scale
Toumeyella parvicornis
- Moderate feeding can cause needles to yellow and become shortened
- Heavy infestations can cause shoots and branches to die back
- Feeding produces honeydew which can cause sooty mold
- Individual scales are reddish-brown, helmet-shaped and up to ¼ inch long when mature
- More information on scale insects
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Diplodia shoot blight
Diplodia pinea
- New needles are brown, short and often glued together with resin
- Cankers are resin coated flattened areas on branches
- Needles and branch beyond canker turn brown and dies
- Tiny, black, pimple-like fungal structures on dead needles and pine cones
- Infected shoots and dead branches occur throughout the tree but most commonly in lower canopy
- Cankers and dead needles can appear rapidly after wounding from hail, drought or other stress
- Olive to dark brown streaking in sapwood below cankers
- Common on Austrian, red and Scots pine
- More information on Diplodia shoot blight
