Lodgepole pine

Botanical name

Pinus contorta (the Sierra form is var. murrayana)

Type

Native evergreen conifer, two needles per bundle

Size

45 to 150 feet tall with a thin, narrow crown (USDA Forest Service, species-wide)

Where it is found

Cold, wet higher ground of the Tahoe basin, roughly 6,200 feet and up on the Nevada side

Bark

Thin, about a quarter inch in many stands (USDA Forest Service)

Known weak points

Shallow roots in wet soil, windthrow, dwarf mistletoe, mountain pine beetle

Lodgepole is the pine you see in dense, even-aged stands at higher elevations, with straight trunks and short crowns. The USDA Forest Service notes that the Sierra Nevada form is a different variety from the Rocky Mountain one that most research describes. This page covers how to identify it, where it fits in our elevation bands and when pruning or removal is right.

How do you identify a lodgepole pine?

Count the needles. Lodgepole carries two needles per bundle, short compared with the three long needles of Jeffrey pine and ponderosa pine. The trunk is straight and slim, the bark is thin and scaly in gray, orange-brown and tan patches, and the crown is narrow and often short on mature trees in a dense stand. Lower limbs die and drop in crowded stands, leaving a clear trunk.

The cones are small, one to two inches, and the tree grows in even-aged stands more than other Sierra pines, so a lodgepole stand often looks like a regiment of trees of the same age.

• Two needles per bundle
• Straight, slim trunk and narrow crown
• Thin, scaly bark
• Small cones on trees in dense stands

Where does it grow around Reno, Carson City and Lake Tahoe?

Lodgepole is a mountain tree. The Forest Service gives no single elevation range for the Sierra form, but the Nevada side of Tahoe, from Glenbrook (6,243 feet) and Zephyr Cove (6,258 feet) to Incline Village (6,437 feet) and Kingsbury (7,126 feet), is within the high-country band where it grows. It is not a tree of the valley floor: Reno is at about 4,505 feet and Carson City at about 4,680 feet.

The Forest Service says shallow root systems form on shallow, poorly drained soil, which is the setting where windthrow is a problem.

What goes wrong with it here?

The Forest Service links shallow roots to windthrow, and notes that trees in dense stands are less windfirm when a neighbor is removed and the stand is suddenly opened up. That matters for a lot where a dozen lodgepoles stood together and some have been cleared. A lodgepole that leans after a storm, with soil heaved at the base, is a hazard; see tree leaning toward a house.

Two other things kill it. Dwarf mistletoe distorts the crown and, according to the Forest Service, raises the potential for torching and crowning in a fire. Mountain pine beetle periodically kills large pines and adds dead fuel; read bark beetles in pines and removing dead pines. Drought is the usual stressor behind both.

Pruning, cabling or removal: which is the right call?

Cabling is not a lodgepole fix; the trunk is slim and the roots are the issue. Pruning means dead wood and ladder-fuel limbs: take off dead lower branches, which also appear in our ladder fuels guide. Heavy pruning of a lodgepole's live crown is rarely a good idea.

Removal is the usual answer for a tree that is dead, that has a crown that has faded, that leans after windthrow or that is heavily infested with mistletoe near a house. The Tahoe diameter checker and TRPA decide whether a live tree over 14 inches needs a permit; a dead tree that could fall on a house does not, and the agency decides. See the Tahoe 14 inch rule. On steep Tahoe lots, crane work is often the way a tall pine comes down.

What does Battle Born Tree Service do about a lodgepole pine?

Start with a free estimate. A certified arborist assesses the tree before any work begins, and the estimate says whether the answer is dead-wood removal or full removal. Two of our crew are ISA Certified Arborists, and credential WE-11728A belongs to one of them. If a tree or limb is on a house or touching a line, 911 if anyone is hurt, NV Energy for the line, then us.