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Pine Needles produce a fungally dominated compost perfect for mulching with a PH of 6.5 (neutral). This is an ideal soil amendment for trees, shrubs, and most perennials.
Thank you Robert, although I was perfectly well aware of the processes and results involved and probably learned them before you were born. But that is precisely my point.
Baccy Man's info appears to come from here, from someone called the Long Island Gardener:http://en.allexperts.com/q/Fertilizer-717/pine-needles-mulch.htm
Excerpt from “Organic Gardening”July-August: 1997. V44. n6 p.5Complete Guide to Organic Mulch, by Scott Meyer “Maybe you’ve avoided using pine needles in your garden because you’ve heard that they’ll acidify your soil. Well, when Clarence Johnson, Ph.d., State College in Georgia tested the pH of soil in plots that had been mulched for 2 years with 3 inches of pine needles, they found that the soil remained at about the same pH (a near neutral, garden friendly 6.8) that it was when they tested it before any of those pine needles were applied. An those needles were also a great mulch! Eggplants mulched with pine needles produced 20% more fruit than plants that were grown with no mulch at all.”
As there are an awful lot of things written about on the internet things tend to get repeated an awful lot.