Green Acre

Are Your Pine Needles Brown, Red or Purple? It Could be Winterburn.

Information from this article comes from Dr. Peter Kolb (MSU Extension Forester). During dry and cold winters, evergreen trees growing in windbreaks or other exposed areas are afflicted with a bad case of needle discoloration that ranges from brown to purple followed by needle drop. Often this is most prevalent on the south side or windward side of the tree, and in some cases only last year’s new needles are impacted and in other cases most of the older needles are disproportionately afflicted. Multiple factors might be intera...