Forestry experts have released an interim report that identifies a mix of factors they believe contributed to concerns regarding the health of thousands of acres of pine trees in southeastern Arkansas.

Though the report provides some answers to a forestry mystery that first began in Arkansas in late 2022, more investigation remains to be done, according to State Forester Kyle Cunningham.

The report, published March 27 by Arkansas Forestry Division Forester Chandler Barton, lays out a timeline of the events, from the first flood of phone calls about ailing trees to the systematic examination of what would later be identified as two decline events. It also lays out potential causal factors — needle disease, insects and herbicides — which were further enabled by “erratic weather conditions.”

The decline events left thousands of acres discolored and even killed some trees, alarming landowners across the state and prompting close monitoring and research into their conditions. Teams of foresters, state Plant Industries division inspectors and extension agents traveled throughout Arkansas and Drew counties, meeting with landowners, conducting aerial surveys and collecting samples for testing to determine what was happening, the report states.

Forestry experts say they hope the information in the preliminary report can help timber owners make informed decisions in their land

management even as their investigation continues.

DECLINE EVENTS

The Arkansas Department of Agriculture first began receiving “a high volume of calls and other inquiries” in September and October 2022 from people who had observed dying pine trees, with communities in the lower Mississippi Alluvial Plain affected, the Forestry Division said.

“As far north as Stuttgart and nearly all the communities that are situated on Highways 65 and 165 experienced the sudden loss of residential pine trees around homes and businesses,” the report states.

Personnel from the Forestry and Plant Industry divisions visited the areas and experts determined a drought stretching from July to October to be one of the most substantial factors behind the decline. That drought brought on the “rapid progression of the contributing factors that followed.”

Ips beetles, insects that target weakened or otherwise unhealthy hosts, were also present on trees.

At the time, the role of herbicide and pine needle diseases in the decline were “the two biggest mysteries,” the report states.

Brown spot needle blight, an aggressive fungus, was identified as a possible cause of the tree damage; five samples were collected and sent to a forest pathology laboratory at the University of Georgia to identify what species were present. At the time, the causal agent of brown spot needle blight, Lecanosticta acicola, was not detected on samples.

No confirmation was made of damage to trees from the drift of herbicide sprayed on fields in 2022, as samples weren’t collected for residue analyses.

More reports of discoloration came to the agriculture department in April 2023, according to the report.

These issues were observed farther west, in Ashley and Drew counties, the report states. The worst symptoms were reported northeast of Hamburg.

The Forestry Caucus of the Arkansas General Assembly organized a meeting in Ashley County in mid-May of 2023 to discuss the reports of pine needle browning and tree death.

Initially, the caucus planned for the meeting to be small, with several forestry experts and Jim Hudson, county judge for Ashley County, taking part.

However, several community members and people with an interest or concern asked to attend, and others learned of the meeting through social media, said state Sen. Ben Gilmore, R-Crossett, who cochairs the caucus. In the end, as many as 50 people came to the county courthouse in Hamburg to discuss the issue, according to Gilmore.

The senator described the meeting as a “good listening session” that gave officials and experts a chance to hear from stakeholders in the community and to reassure them that the state was working to determine the source of the pines’ deteriorating health. In addition to the forestry caucus, the agriculture department and others, he said that Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ office has also gotten involved.

Barton led a meeting on May 24, 2023, with personnel from Lab Services, as well as the Forestry and Plant Industries divisions at the Forestry Division’s office in Monticello, where he made several recommendations that were later enacted, including:

■ Visitations to sites of pine tree distress in Ashley and Drew counties for the purpose of collecting samples from living trees with symptoms of pine discoloration.

■ Creation of apps to document observed pine tree damage.

■ Developing a summary of consideration for the decline.

Aerial surveys were conducted in the weeks before, which allowed the department to grasp the breadth of observable discoloration. The forestry division uses planes for aerial surveys, said Cunningham, the state forester. The division has 13 planes in its fleet, with some dedicated to forest health monitoring.

The hardest-hit areas were mapped so they could be monitored throughout the year, and additional flights were made in July, August and October to determine whether any trees died in the discolored areas. A total of 6,835 mapped acres showed severe discoloration, though the report states the total affected area was believed to be “much greater.”

“A large majority” of the affected areas recovered, with new leaves replacing those that had browned, the report states. However, roughly half of those with severe discoloration showed some degree of tree mortality, enough for Cunningham to describe the phenomenon as a “significant issue across that region.”

Several rounds of physical sample collections took place between late May and mid-October, with a total of 41 samples collected across 25 locations. Of those, 28 were loblolly pine and 13 were of various other deciduous plant species. They were stored in a “sub-zero freezer” before being shipped overnight to the Mississippi State Chemical Laboratory to be tested for two herbicides, dicamba and paraquat. One pine sample, as well as one other plant sample, had a detectable level of paraquat, according to the report; however, no samples had detectable levels of dicamba.

USDA Forest Service pathologists in Pineville, La., then received 20 of the pine samples. Of those roughly two-thirds were confirmed to have L. aciola, the causal organism of brown spot needle blight, according to the forestry division.

“That’s a really significant amount,” Cunningham said.

Brown spot needle blight is a fungal disease that causes needles to drop from pines and can stunt the growth of, or even kill, trees, according to Joe Fox, who retired from his 11-year tenure as state forester at the end of June.

The blight has also been identified in Alabama, and trees have shown similar symptoms in other nearby states, including Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The region saw as many as 10 “wet” years straight, then experienced a drought in October 2022, according to Fox, the now-retired state forester. During these dry periods, trees that had grown accustomed to wet conditions begin “sucking for anything that’s in the air around, and that could be brown spot needle blight fungus,” Fox said in May 2023. “Or it might be the little bit of chemical from the adjacent field. And then the ips beetle see the tree is struggling when they get in it, and pretty soon the tree is finished.”

Michael Blazier, dean of the University of Arkansas at Monticello College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources, has said wet seasons also produce ripe conditions for diseases to fungi to spread.

TIMBER OWNERS

Timber owners in south Arkansas have been closely monitoring the health of their trees — the source of their livelihoods. More than 56% of Arkansas is covered by trees, and forestry plays a significant role in the state’s economy, according to Arkansas Forestry Association Director Max Braswell.

The loblolly pine, which has been hit the hardest by the discoloration, is also the “main tree” that has been planted in the region over much of the past century, according to Fox. Out of about 19 million acres of timberland throughout Arkansas, about 3.4 million acres are pine plantations, the retired forester said.

Zac Harper, manager at Hamburg-based Bierbaum Timber & Contracting, said timber owners had been “very on edge” for a while because, early on, the discoloration spread at a rate that suggested it might harm the industry. His trees weren’t harmed to the degree feared by some in the business, though, he said. Instead, much of the discoloration has either reversed or at least stopped spreading.

Harper said his company is holding up fine.

“Business is good,” he said. “It’s just very wet.”

Mike Pennington, executive vice president of Monticello-based forestry and logging company L.D. Long Inc., expressed worry last spring that the ailing trees would become susceptible to a rise in beetle infestations. Hundreds of acres of forest can be lost to beetles if an attack isn’t controlled properly.

This year, he said the overall health of his trees is “getting a little worse” but added that he hadn’t yet seen any negative effects on his business.

“So far maybe one or two are dying,” Pennington said. “But if they do start dying, that’s when things get rough.”

Pennington said lumber mills are already grappling with an oversupply of timber, as the industry is “growing it faster than we’re cutting it.”

However, Fox has said that even sick trees can be cut and sold if they die.

The Arkansas Forestry Association has been urging landowners to take a measured approach to managing their forests, making decisions about what to do with symptomatic trees on a standby-stand basis.

“We don’t want folks to go down and start cutting down all their trees because they’re panicked about what might happen to them someday,” Braswell, the association director, said last spring. “The markets can’t take that kind of fiber.”

Regardless, Pennington said he remains optimistic that the industry in Arkansas will recuperate from the effect of pine decline. Some signs of recovery have appeared at some of the very first sites to show discoloration, he said.

He was with Barton several weeks ago for sample collection, and the foresters planned to return to collect more, he said.

Braswell said last week he thought forestry in Arkansas was doing “just fine.”

“We’re still growing trees as we have perfected the art of growing pine trees and hardwood trees in the state,” he said.

According to Braswell, timber owners have been understandably concerned, though.

“This is not a pandemic scenario, but for those folks that are impacted by it, it’s incredibly important and incredibly concerning,” he said. “And so that’s the reason why you keep on working on an issue like this.”

MORE RESEARCH NEEDED

This spring, observers have noted some additional discoloration, according to Cunningham. Some of that stretches into Jefferson County, just south of Pine Bluff, “which is a little different than what we saw last year,” he said.

The forestry division said “continuous work” will be needed to delve more deeply into the factors that caused the declines. To that end, additional sampling will take place during the spring and summer on injured forest areas that reflect the decline conditions observed in the region.

According to Cunningham, the division identified about 8,000 acres to conduct flights over. Barton began those aerial surveys this month, the state forester said. Experts will also work with landowners in newly affected areas to take additional ground samples.

A tree health report with additional results will be published by the end of the year, according to the division. In the meantime, the strategies and tools used to study the trees will continue to evolve.

Blazier said experts are better automating some processes to screen for disease symptoms and deepening their analyses into patterns of spread. His school also plans to break ground next year on a research facility that will serve as a testing center for landowners who are concerned about the health of their trees, for instance. The site will also provide researchers tools to understand and remediate harmful factors.

According to Blazier, the level of concern experienced at large over the health of southeast Arkansas’ trees has abated as more information on their health is uncovered, but he added that’s not enough to remove such worries entirely.

“The concern continues to be elevated because knowing it is only one part of the process of ameliorating a problem,” he said. “The next is to get better information on what we can do to reduce and contain this problem.”