Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta): what the agencies record

This page reports what US federal publications say about one tree. It does not identify trees from descriptions or photos and does not say what should be done with any tree. The family overview, tree species in the agency records, explains the sources and holds the comparison table. Other western pines and conifers are on the same list, for example ponderosa pine.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Pinus contorta, pine family; a two-needled pine of the subgenus Pinus (Silvics)
Varieties, Silvics	var. contorta (shore, coast or beach pine), var. bolanderi (Bolander pine, Mendocino County, California), var. murrayana (Sierra lodgepole or tamarack pine) and var. latifolia (Rocky Mountain lodgepole or black pine)
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in Alaska, Canada and the lower 48 states
Elevation, Silvics	Coastal form mainly from sea level to 610 m (2,000 ft); inland form from 490 to 3,660 m (1,600 to 12,000 ft)
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	39 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range and sites

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, Volume 1, 1990) calls lodgepole pine ubiquitous, with a wide ecological amplitude. It grows through the Rocky Mountain and Pacific coast regions, north to the Yukon Territory and south to Baja California, and from the Pacific Ocean east to the Black Hills of South Dakota. The handbook puts forests dominated by the species at 6 million ha (15 million acres) in the western United States and 20 million ha (50 million acres) in Canada, and ranks the lodgepole pine forest type third by extent among commercial forest types in the Rocky Mountains.

Silvics says minimum temperatures across the range run from 7 degrees C (45 degrees F) on the coast to minus 57 degrees C (minus 70 degrees F) in the northern Rocky Mountains, and annual precipitation from 250 mm (10 in) at low interior elevations to more on the northern coast. It describes the species as very intolerant of shade. The soils are wide-ranging and usually moist; the handbook says growth is best over granites, shales and coarse-grained lavas, and that lodgepole pine is often the one tree species able to grow on infertile soils. The coastal form is often found on peat bogs in southeastern Alaska, British Columbia and western Washington. It says the species is a component of 27 of the 55 western cover types of the Society of American Foresters.

Four roles in succession

The handbook describes lodgepole pine as a minor early-succession species in warm, moist habitats and a dominant one in cool, dry habitats, and sets out four roles. As a minor seral species it is replaced by shade-tolerant associates in 50 to 200 years; as a dominant seral species the replacement takes 100 to 200 years; as a persistent type there is little sign of replacement; and as a climax species it is the only tree able to grow in that environment. Silvics says fire regimes have shaped this range of roles, especially where repeated fires removed a seed source for other species.

Cones and seed

The species is monoecious, with male and female strobili borne separately on the same tree. The handbook gives the reddish purple female flowers as 10 to 12 mm (0.4 to 0.5 in) long, in whorls of two to five, and the male flowers as 8 to 14 mm (0.3 to 0.6 in) in clusters at the base of new shoots. Pollen generally matures from mid-May to mid-July, with the date tied to elevation and climate. Seed cones mature in August, September or October, more than a year after pollination. Viable seed is produced at an early age, commonly 5 to 10 years, and good crops come at intervals of one to three years.

Silvics describes serotinous cones, which stay closed because a resinous bond holds the scales together, and says the bond breaks at 45 to 60 degrees C (113 to 140 degrees F). Seeds can stay viable on the tree for years, and millions of seeds per hectare can be held in closed cones. The handbook says the habit varies widely: the habit is uncommon in eastern Oregon, rare in coastal populations, and missing from Sierra Nevada, southern California and Baja California populations. It says many Rocky Mountain stands have fewer than 50 percent serotinous-cone trees. It calls the species a fire-maintained subclimax type and ties its ability to regenerate in very dense stands to the closed-cone habit.

Size and stand density

Silvics says growth and yield are strongly affected by stand density. It reports a Rocky Mountain maximum of 280 cubic meters per hectare at 1,980 trees per hectare (800 per acre), and extreme cases where 70-year-old stands with 247,000 trees per hectare (100,000 per acre) averaged only 1.2 m (4 ft) tall. Mature sizes vary between regions: in the Rocky Mountains most trees at 140 years were 18 to 33 cm (7 to 13 in) in diameter and 18 to 25 m (60 to 80 ft) tall; Sierra Nevada trees at 100 years averaged 42 cm (16 to 17 in) in diameter and 28 to 30 m (90 to 100 ft); coastal trees are 15 to 50 cm (6 to 20 in) in diameter and only 6 to 12 m (20 to 40 ft) tall. The handbook adds that dwarf lodgepole pines on the Mendocino County coast stand only a meter or so tall, a size it ascribes to a highly acid hardpan.

Wood

The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) says the heartwood runs from light yellow to light yellow-brown and the sapwood is yellow or nearly white, with generally straight grain and narrow growth rings. It calls the wood moderately lightweight, fairly easy to work, moderately soft and moderately low in strength, with moderately high shrinkage. Uses it lists are lumber, mine timbers, railroad crossties and poles, with framing, siding, millwork, flooring and cabin logs used increasingly. Silvics adds paneling, corral poles, utility poles and pulpwood.

Wood Handbook figure	Green	At 12% moisture content
Specific gravity (Table 5-3b)	0.38	0.41
Modulus of rupture, lbf per square inch (Table 5-3b)	5,500	9,400
Side hardness, lbf (Table 5-3b)	330	480

The green weight is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Damaging agents the handbook names

Bark beetles. Silvics calls the mountain pine beetle the most severe insect pest of lodgepole pine and says periodic epidemics seriously affect managed stands. It describes adults attacking in July or August and introducing bluestain fungi, with egg galleries in the phloem. It names the pine engraver as another aggressive bark beetle that develops in logging slash and windthrows. See the mountain pine beetle page and the engraver beetle page.
Other insects. The lodgepole terminal weevil, Warren's collar weevil, a branch-mining weevil, pine needle scale, black pineleaf scale, spruce spider mite, and defoliators including the lodgepole sawfly, lodgepole needle miner, pine tube moth and pandora moth.
Dwarf mistletoe. The handbook calls Arceuthobium americanum the most widespread and serious parasite of lodgepole pine, with more than 50 percent of lodgepole forests infected in many areas, and lists reduced growth, higher mortality and lower wood quality and seed production.
Fungi. A stem canker from Atropellis piniphila is named as one of the most serious diseases; comandra blister rust and western gall rust cause stem cankers, with western gall rust needing no alternate host. Needle casts, Armillaria and Heterobasidion root rots and wood decays are listed.
Weather, fire and animals. The thin bark makes the tree more susceptible to fire than Douglas-fir, though less than Engelmann spruce or subalpine fir. Chinook winds after extreme cold can cause red belt injury, and heavy snow can break or bend trees in dense stands. Porcupines and pocket gophers are named as animal damage.

For who takes reports of regulated pests, see reporting a pest in the United States, and pests and diseases by country sets out which ones agencies regulate.