This time of year, buds of the spruce and fir trees have emerged from the ground and would now be a snack for the active spruce budworm. A perfect time to be spraying those buds with pesticides.

Spruce trees produce buds in May that squirrels eat. Perhaps there is some chemical signal within the buds that triggers what Boutin calls “adaptive anticipation” within the orange lords of ...

The Sitka spruce is a coniferous, evergreen tree that can grow anywhere between 125 and 180 feet tall and can live for several ... the spruce aphid doesn’t harm new buds or current-year needles. ...

The early intervention program, modeled after one in New Brunswick, would fund the spring spraying of pesticides on 300,000 acres of commercial spruce-fir forests in northern Maine where state ...

An aerial survey confirmed 3,000 acres of Maine's forest were damaged by spruce budworm in July. Modeling indicates 178,000 acres are at risk of defoliation from budworm larvae that will emerge ...

A new U of A study shows how white spruce trees and fungi team up to survive and ward off attacks from the spruce budworm—an alliance that could point to ways to boost the resilience of forests.

The trees are already a fire risk with their thin bark and shallow roots. Otto says there were also more fires hundreds of years ago that would wipe out balsam fir and spruce.