Hi, I'm 90% sure it's the rain, aggravated by the shade. If you can't find a sunnier place to keep it, and can't keep it out of the rain somehow, as well as having it in a fast draining mostly grit mix, you probably will continue to have trouble. The neem oil won't help if conditions don't change.

Lucy
The soil is about 50 percent turkey grit with the balance pine bark and turface. Nothing can be done about the sun, just to small a yard.
In hind site the neem oil will slow water loss but I thought it may be a fungus.
It can be kept covered when it rains during the day. I'll have to watch the weather report for night rain.
How about planting it in the ground?
Any one else having the same problems with pines?
WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO PROTECT YOUR PLANTS.
Paul

In the ground would certainly help, depending on whether you have drainage issues, but unless it's Nov., you might want to do no more than slip pot it in (without doing any work at all otherwise). However, what would you do in future? Your mix sounds fine. You might also want to pick up some "No Damp" at a garden centre or even a good hardware (with plant section) as a couple of doses might help.

An arborist looked at the pine and said it was blight.

If you mean a real horticulturist, then do whatever he says, but if you mean a guy who cuts street trees for the city, do not. Blight is not that common, and definitely not in store bought bonsai. Plus it's a catch-all name that doesn't necessarily explain a lot.

Yes, a real One and one of the top 5 Arborist and landscape designers in the state.(Also a relative)
He has taken the tree himself will try to save it.
Paul

From my experience with 6 of these $#@@*&^%@ (and my close bonsai friend) we figure they were a sick joke played on the Bonsai community by Harpo and Zeppo Kiramatsui. We bought them cheap and put them in our growing field, all of the needles did the same thing yours did and remained that way, no better no worse. After 5 years in the ground, in 8 hrs of full sun during a good part of the year, they did exactly nothing.

They didn't grow but they didn't die...they just sort of sat there and be'd a tree (and very small ones). Nothing we did changed anything...they just sat there for 5 years. When we were clearing the field I grabbed one and put it in a Mica pot in a mix of 80% Haydite and 20% small pine bark. The mix was so open that water ran right through without slowing down.

Within about 3 weeks it was breaking buds...go figure. They had to be the most uninteresting trees I ever worked with and yes, the one in the pot retained the needle discoloration, I gave it away.

I also purchased a KO-KU-HO pine dwrf variety. Any one have experience with them?
What dwarf pines have you or anyone else had luck with?
Paul

Hmmmmm, I don't know if dwarf pines and luck should be in the same sentence LOL, then again I always went for larger trees for bonsai. The little ones take more care larger ones are more forgiving in most respects.

I think it was Lucy that posted somewhere in here that 'most' bonsai are made from larger trees and then styled smaller rather than growing 'up' from a smaller tree.