What is blue pine wood?
Blue pine is a term coined to describe pine lumber, usually from lodgepole pine trees, that has been infected and killed by the mountain pine beetle. The beetle introduces a fungus to the tree as it bores through the bark. The end result is the tree’s death. The fungus causes the blue staining throughout the tree.
What causes blue stain pine?
Blue stain is caused by fungi that grow in sapwood and use parts of it for their food. These fungi are disseminated either by spores, which are produced in great abundance and are carried about by wind and insects, or by direct growth from infected to uninfected wood.
What is blue buggy pine?
Common to wood in Colorado, the Mountain Pine Beetles can spread to Lodgepole and Ponderosa pine trees. The result of this is a blue stain that causes wood to turn a blue to gray color that eventually kills the tree but actually does not damage the wood at all!
Is Blue Pine rare?
Blue stain pine is rare and hard to produce at a greater cost (this keeps the price up so do not let the cat out of the bag). Handle the market with care. Mold is a problem and a health risk. Blue stain is not mold and has no known health risk with it.
Is Blue Pine good for furniture?
Blue pine wood furniture will definitely stand out from other pieces of furniture in your home and will have a unique story behind it as well. Blue pine furniture has a rustic, timeless feel to it, and there’s no other wooden furniture quite like it.
Does Blue Pine need to be sealed?
Pine will rot if left touching the ground even if it is treated. You have to keep up on the sealing because it won’t stick all that good to pine and flake off. The reason you seal off pine wood to protect humans and animals isn’t that its poisonous, it’s because the damn sap will git all over you.
What temperature kills pine beetles?
Temperatures need to dip below about -30 C for four or five consecutive weeks to kill nearly all pine beetle larvae nestled inside tree trunks, said Nadir Erbilgin, a University of Alberta professor of forest entomology who studies the pine beetle.
What bugs live in pine trees?
Pine trees are susceptible to damage by over 20 different kinds of insects, including aphids, borers, caterpillars, mealybugs, and weevils. Look for signs of insects by examining needles, branches, and bark.