I tried to follow the advice from four months ago. I cut back watering to once a week for two hours with a soaker hose around the drip line. I stopped fertilizing some months ago. About two weeks ago I noticed that the top 1/3 of the tree looked like it was drying out. Should I cut the dried branches? It seems like the drying out is spreading downward. Would greatly appreciate any input anyone might offer.
The best resource for your area is the Pima (I think) county Extension Office. Take some pictures of your tree and maybe a foliage sample and go ask them what is going on.
What is that green string in two spots around the trunk doing in the top part of the tree? Was the top broken before? It looks like tying up didn't help. As for watering put your soaker hose in some kind of a big container and see how much water it will produce in two hours. You may (or may not) find out that you grossly over-water your tree.
If recently planted probably dried out and died between watering. The way to see what the soil moisture situation is with a plant is to dig around beneath it and actually look at the soil near it. Newly planted stock in particular will often tend to have moisture attracted away from the original field soil or potting medium root-ball it came with, unless planted in a damp, heavy soil which may instead empty water into the coarser soil that came with the new plant (in the manner of a sump). However, under the site conditions that appear to be shown in your picture it seems likely the pine got fatally dried out at some point - perhaps even before it was planted.
The string around the top part of the tree is holding a stick in place to force a leader to grow straight. The last time I measured it was a little more than two gallons in a half hour coming through the soaker hose.