Not Autumn Red

While feeding the main herd of cows in the far field, a spot of red showed bright in the forest of green. The needles on the tree turned color in just the last couple of weeks. Since this is the in the area that we think we have a spot of root rot, we will get the tree felled and out of the woods to keep the disease from spreading.
We were able to get up the hill later in the day to take this tree down.
Once it was felled I had a chance to get a good look at the stump and was surprised to see no evidence of spangle or root rot diseases.
I did see minuscule holes in the bark signaling an infestation rather than disease.
It looks like the bark beetle claimed this victim. We will be monitoring this area closely for dead and dying trees in an attempt to keep the infestation under control.
Publications from the USDA suggest options:
We will be going with prevention first. Now that we see a tree that has been infected the stand area is noted and monitored.
Stand Manipulation is a term for removing the infected and damaged trees from the site. We see some damaged and not real healthy trees in this small patch so we will cut them and get them out of the forest.