The Jack pine is one of the hardiest native trees in North America, growing from zone 2 to 6. It is found on flat or rolling sandy plains, rock outcrops, woodlands and savannas, where the climate offers mild to cool summers and very cold, snowy winters. This pine will grow in dry, sterile soils and needs full sun and free air movement. It is a pioneer species and invades recently burned, poor, sandy or logged areas. It has a slow to medium growth rate and does not tolerate limestone soils, preferring dry, sandy, acid soils.
Trees grown in plantations are subject to root rot.
Stems of young trees are often malformed due to eastern gall rust, and seedlings easily succumb to root rot and damping-off. This is the most northern pine and it is essentially a Canadian and Great Lakes species. It is native from near the Arctic Circle in Alaska south and east to the Great Lakes states and the northern New England states.