Gardening and Horticulture - Austrian Pines

Put in a number of Austrian Pines a few years ago, most are doing fine but there are a few that have had brown needles, particularly on the lower areas develop, found they do drop, yet the tree generally produces new growth as it gets bigger, but not in areas where it was brown. Not sure what is causing this, I had heard it might be a fungus related issue and there are copper based sprays..........any idea as to what might be the cause and how I might address it.
Always a big thanks for suggestions and help.

Hi David,

There are a few possibilities that come to mind. Take a look at this cached version so you can easily see which of these problems are found in Austrian pine.
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:RVVZ42o1TcgJ:www.tulsamastergardeners.org/trees/pines.shtml+Austrian+pine+brown+needles&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Here's the uncached version.
http://www.tulsamastergardeners.org/trees/pines.shtml

More info on Dothistroma Needle Blight with pics at this first site, as this could be a possibility.
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/dothistroma/doth.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1082/is_n2_v38/ai_14988850/

Is that what you are seeing?

Newt

Thanks for the information. Looking at the descriptions and the trees I suspect it might be a combination of natural browing as described or the needle blight. All my trees have new growth on the ends including those branches that have the brown needles. Some of the pines have no brown needles at all which makes the issue confusing; they are green from bottom to top!
Did notice one top has a browned branch which may be due to breakage or something else but I am going to conintue to spray them with the copper based chemical just to be sure, I probably do not think it will harm any of the good growth.

David, you are very welcome! I hope they will be ok.

Newt