Fusarium circinatum is a fungal pathogen, known to cause pitch canker disease on pines. The disease cause important damage and relevant economic looses in nurseries and natural or planted stands of pines. In Europe, pitch canker is an introduced non-native disease. First isolated in northern Spain, it affects nurseries and forest plantations of Pinus radiata and P. pinaster. Maritime pine (P. pinaster) is a native conifer of the Western Mediterranean basin used for important reforestation areas in many countries and continents. Nowadays, there is no means to control the pitch canker disease. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the variability of P. pinaster susceptibility to the pathogen fungus and the influence of environmental maternal effects. The variability of P. pinaster susceptibility to the fungus is first evaluated using plant defense elicitors. Particularly, the ability of different chemical plant elicitors (methyl jasmonate, DL-ß-aminobutiric acid and benzothiadiazole) to induce resistance in P. pinaster against F. circinatum was evaluated. The results suggested that the use of these elicitors to prevent pitch canker disease in P. pinaster seedlings should be discarded. Moreover, the variability of half-sib families from 39 P. pinaster clones were tested for resistance to pitch canker disease and results indicated that the use of native pine individuals as breeding stock or as sources to produce seeds with moderate levels of tolerance to F. circinatum is possible. On the other hand, the effects of two contrasting P. pinaster seed orchards (Sergude and Monfero, favourable and unfavourable seed orchards, respectively), in terms of growth and reproduction, were studied, in order to account for variability of susceptibility of P. pinaster seedlings to F. circinatum. The results showed that maternal environment influenced seedlings susceptibility, so that the necrosis length caused by the fungus was different between seedlings from contrasting maternal environments. Carbohydrate compounds and antioxidant activity of seedlings were different depending on the maternal environments. To sum up, it has been demonstrated that an appropriated genetic selection for less susceptible clones and maternal environments exposed to the appropriated environmental cues can reduce the impact of the disease. These results open possibilities of research to further investigate new means of controlling pitch canker disease.