Mistletoe sucks!

[OutOnaLimb]

Up here in the mountains we have a huge problem with Dwarf Mistletoe (Arceuthobium spp.)attacking the lodge pole pines. The info that I got from the CSU extension service stated that mistletoe is a parasitic plant that doesn not photosynthasize but robs the host tree of sugars, starches and water. So in my mind cutting off the sunlight to this parasite would not kill it. Is this a different species of Mistletoe?

Kenn

 

[rbtree]

I just found this thread. We have little mistletoe in residential Puget Sound. Lots of witches broom in hemlock though.

When I drove to the redwood forest last year, it was everywhere along the roads from northern Oregon to no. Cali. Mostly in the Garry oak.

Good to hear there are some remedies.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

i think there is a dwarf species of mistletoe for pines/softwood, but the stuff goes worldwide i beleive of both species. i think thee green parasite to woody plants.

Here are some smaller branchings of the devastation, that we just happened to pull the other day.

 

[Stumper]

Kenn, You can look at Spydy's pics and note the differences-green leafy plant not yellow twiggy mass. All the mistletoes are parasites rather than simbiotes but the dwarf varieties on conifers seem more destructive. (That is just my own observation -I don't have a source for hard data.)

 

[OutOnaLimb]

True on that one Justin. I have seen mistletoe in the south and the stuff up here is a completely different thing. Do you guys have a big problem with that over in Canon? When I was working up in Breckenridge it was every where along with MPB. I just got back from a friends house in Fountain and trimmed off a few branches on a Ponderosa Pine that he had in his back yard. This it the first case of it that I have seen on the front range. Also he has some aspens that are infested with some sort of gall that looks to be the size of a marble in his young 20 ft trees. It looks to me to be some sort of tube borer, but Im not sure.

Kenn

 

[Stumper]

There isn't much of a mistletoe issue here in Canon City but if you head into the mountains you'll find it. I know the galls/tubercles you speak of on Aspens but have forgotten the culprit that causes them. Our biggest problem with Aspen (and cottonless Cottonwood) in C.C. is cytospora canker. Average life for an Aspen here is 7 years.

 

[OutOnaLimb]

Do you guys have much of a problem with fungal trunk rot over there?

Kenn

 

[Stumper]

I'm not sure which fungus you are referencing-some of the cytospora infected trees start decaying rapidly but I don't run into a lot of trunk decay-older Silver Maples are usually hollow.

 

[OutOnaLimb]

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/decay/decay.htm

Here ya go Justin, see if this link worked.

Kenn

 

[Stumper]

_I occassionally find stain in Aspens but the cytospora is knocking them out so quick that nothing else seems to matter.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

i'm glad more don't have trouble with this nasty, communicable parasite that i hate. If ya do see it, try not to let it spread, we have some areas that it can be seen for 3 blocks or so; and if a few trees or limbs were taken at the start, all that waste wouldn't happen!

 

[xtremetrees]

Down south here years ago my Grandfather would grab his .22 and go misletoe hunting!
During christmas time no kidding. He get in his aliunmium boat and go looking for it down the river. Find it and shoot it out. Motor to it and pick it up and sell it.
I see alot of misletoe in wetland areas. I am guessing the reason for this is that birds are roosting in these areas at night. Taking a crap and WHAM! misletoe.
Certainly see it more in wetland areas thou.

 

[ORclimber]

Found a single clump of mistletoe in a Betula pendula today. Anyone else finding leafy mistletoe in trees other than oaks?

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by ORclimber
Found a single clump of mistletoe in a Betula pendula today. Anyone else finding leafy mistletoe in trees other than oaks?

Maple, hickory, elm, you name it. Sweetgum very common here but rare to see mistletoe in it...

 

[pbtree]

I find the darn stuff in a variety of trees here in so cal, and find I hate it more each time I wrestle with it.

I am going to try painting it - that sounds like a pretty neat trick, and it makes good sense. :Monkey: