Is my spruce a gonner?

Hi,

My spruce is turning completely yellow and brown. Does anyone know if this is a bug or a disease?

 

Looks like a fir, not a spruce, but yes, dead. Impossible to determine the cause from these photos alone.

 

Thanks for the reply and tree ID correction.
Before I do something drastic and cut it down, can I get someone else to confirm its dead?

Is there any fungicide that might help?

A closer look shows the needle tips turning brown 1st then spreading. Anyone know what is affecting this tree? Is this swiss needlecast? Every branch from top to bottom is like this.

Thanks for looking at this post.

 

Thanks for the close-ups! It looks a lot less alarming from these, it may well still be alive. There's no sign of any disease or insects, it could simply be winter cold damage, with the needle tips desiccated by cold dry air (freeze-dried). Wait to see if the buds on the shoots leaf out as spring progresses; if they do, it'll be OK. You should be able to tell by the end of June.

For more detailed identity, it is a Korean Fir (Abies koreana).

 

Probably didn't like the winter. Which means it will probably burn up again some time, even if it pulls through now.

 

True, though from reports I've seen elsewhere, it's been the worst winter for foliage burn on conifers in the region for several decades.

 

Thanks for the replies! I'll play the wait-and-see approach for now.

I am in Southern Ontario and we did have a bad winter with a lot of snow and an ice storm around Christmas too so hoping its winter burn and it will recover.

 

Next occurrence of killer winter not uniform or predictable - that it was decades since the last one has no relationship to when the next one will be. It might, in fact be decades until the next one or it might be two years from now. In my area there has been a past history of hard winters coming in clusters. Once it becomes established that a plant can be tender on a site then it will always be tender on that site, and the planter will always be risking that it might freeze again while they are still gardening there - and having to put up with the consequences.

Won't be the same problem in this case but when the tender plant is a 100' gum or pine removal of the suddenly dead top can be a significant bother and expense.