fungal disease that has killed half of Vermont?s butternuts

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fungal disease that has killed half of Vermont’s butternuts

JERICHO, Vt. — In the 29 years since a fungal disease known as butternut canker was first observed in southwest Wisconsin, it has infected over 90 percent of butternut trees throughout their native range from New Brunswick, Canada, to Georgia to Minnesota.

Dr. Bergdahl was the first to find the canker in Vermont, near Snake Mountain, in the fall of 1983. Since then, it has killed half the butternuts in the state. The fungus, Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum, was described as a new species in 1979 and bears the earmarks of being recently introduced. But it has never been found outside North America.

Dutch elm disease and chestnut blight, also caused by fungi, were notorious, and much more conspicuous, because elms and chestnuts were abundant. Butternuts are little-known, however, and have always been sparsely distributed. But there is a growing effort to understand the disease.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/science/earth/28butter.html

 

[Themadd1]

I recently heard about this issue. I dont believe there has been alot of talk about this in Mass. The problem is there are so few butternuts around and most people dont know they even have them. We are going to be posting a new website soon with a page on new diseases in our area. I think it is important to educate our customer base on anything that has potential to affect their urban landscape. I think we are going to have two short articles each month. One for an insect and one for a funus infection. We are trying to go toward an overall PHC program that will educate customers on what they can do to fix their tree problems along with our services to impact the micro environment in their back yards.

I think that with less sales literature and a little more education we can reel in our customers a little tighter. They gain the understanding and we get the exclusive phone call when there is a need for professional service.

 

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Chestnut tree in Oklahoma are a rarity due to chestnut blight, a disease caused by the fungus Endothia parasitica.

Chestnut blight originally came from east Asia. appeared 1904 in New York City and quickly spread across North America, almost wiping out American chestnut (C. dentata) by 1940. Fungus destroys inner bark and growing tissue of trunk."