Adelgid?

[sgbotsford]

I have a startup tree farm, container based. I buy seedlings from various sources, stuff them in a series of pots, and eventaully (the hope is...) sell them to landscappers, arborists, and small garden centres.

Recently I have found a gall on my spruce. Doing my homework it appears to be Adelgids cooleyi. Bright red gall, with green needles sticking out.

First time I've seen it, but also the first time I've gotten in a shipment of douglas fir, the secondary host for this aphidoid.

BUT

I've also found similar galls on my lodgepole and jack pine. But so far *NOT* on my red pine or scots pine (also 2 needle pines.) Nor on my ponderosa, white, whitebark, or bristlecones. Also *NOT* on serbian spruce or black hills spruce which are closest to the doug fir in question.

Anyone have any experience with A. cooleyi attacking pines?

I've attached a pic of galls on a young jack pine.

 

[treeseer]

book sez they attack white, engelmann, sitka and blue spruce. no pines

 

[RUBE]

What kind of spruce, latin name, is the picture of?

 

[sgbotsford]

galls...

At the home yard the affected spruces are picea glauca. At the pot yard the affected spruce are picea pungens -- colorado spruce.

The picture I sent is a gall on jack pine, pinus banksiana. I also have ones on lodgepole pine, pinus contorta var latifolia.


I have two other 2 needle pines that are unaffected: P. resinosa and P. sylvestres (red, and scots) The ponderosa and the 5 needles pines are similarly unaffected.

In addition I have larger galls on a single siberian larch. (L. siberica) Larix is mentioned as a secondary host for adelgids.

***

My reading is that adelgids are fussy about hosts. I couldn't find any gall-producing bugs that affect both spruce and pine.

So the question remains open.

 

[Ed Roland]

The picture you posted seems to be reproductive parts of the plant. Cones. The red items opposite one another on the stem.