Lightening and a pine tree?

I have a row of really tall pine trees.20-30 of them 50/60 Ft. high. Most have trunks about 18"-24" diameter.


One of them, last October/November was hit with lightening about 15 ft.up it busted out a strip of bark about 8-10 ft long.


about 1 1/2" deep.No burn marks,the tree and it's trunk look fine. will it recover?do I need to do anything special to it??


Thanks


MW

Lightening and a pine tree?
It will recover eventually. The annular growth will grow everywhere but there until eventually the lumps formed from the annual growth grow over the wound. I know that's hard to picture, but yes, it should recover. Let me see if I can find a link that explains it better.
Reply:There is not much you can do for it. As long as the needles look similar to the other trees, it may recover. A scar will form where it was hit, and sometimes they will succumb to insects or black heart disease after that - it all depends on how much of the live wood was damaged on the way from the strike point to the ground. It will continue to be weaker than the others, and you may eventually see some differences in girth or growth rate, but for now, as long as it only shows signs of the loss bark, you might now have much other damage to it - although it was undoubtedly seriously electrocuted by that lightening contact. Sap should form around the edges of the lost bark and the surface should eventually darken and match the other bark better - but the tree may still falter and die - evergreens take longer to exhibit signs of severe damage than other trees do. In the meantime, you could fertilize it a little, to try and keep the health up and encourage more healing - check the home improvement or garden stores for fertilizers for evergreens and trees that you can simply water into the root zone or spread on the ground below the tree for absorption.