July 13, 2013
A seven-acre section of woodland near Bickleigh belonging to farmer John Greenslade has been decimated by the disease, and a major programme to uproot and destroy affected trees is under way.
July 5, 2013
Thousands of mature, native ash trees are being dug up and burned after the devastating disease ash dieback was confirmed in Devon.
About 2,000 trees at Byway Farm near Tiverton are affected, according to the Forestry Commission.
This is the first confirmed case of the disease in mature, native trees in the region – another nine cases have been confirmed in young trees that have been recently planted at sites across Devon and Cornwall, including two sites on Dartmoor National Park, according to Forestry Commission figures.
Ben Jones, of the commission’s England plant protection team, said: “It appears that the affected trees had the disease when they were planted in 1996-97. It is concerning and we are continuing our investigations into how the spread had taken place and how far it has spread.”
March 9, 2013
In East Sussex where I live I know of many places, usually abandoned fields, that have regenerated to secondary woodland surprisingly quickly and, judging by the size of the saplings I have seen in some televised tree planting schemes (maybe only from seed this year), regeneration may be almost as fast, if not faster than planting. Though it does not do much for the tree nursery trade, or other human engagement with tree planting schemes.
I have long thought that we are failing to appreciate the diversity and complexity of wildlife if we compartmentalise the landscape too much: that is a wood, that is a heath, that is a field.
http://ramblingsofanaturalist.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-ash-dieback-debate-develops.html
March 8, 2013
HUNDREDS of trees could be chopped down to halt the spread of a disease wreaking havoc on woodlands.
The zone would run diagonally across Scotland from the Moray Firth to the Clyde to create a sheltered area to the west.
It is hoped that, while some more areas will be affected in the next five years, the sheltered area could remain disease-free for up to 20 years, allowing new approaches to be developed.
Statutory action is being considered which would require the removal or killing of all recently planted ash trees on any infected sites in both the buffer and sheltered areas.
Actions could include uprooting or cutting the trees before burning and deep burial, spraying the stumps or chemically injecting standing trees.
March 8, 2013
“One of the things the Forestry Commission is doing is setting up an area a network of ash plantations where they will be trialling different types of ash genes to see which ones are going to be more resistant. And, what they do know from the work they’ve done in Europe, is that this resistancy is hereditary. So it does seem to give a reasonable clue that it should be possible to encourage natural resistance varieties within native population of ash.”
Mr Roughton said: “When we got the request from the Forestry Commission that they were looking for trial areas we responded immediately to offer part of this field because we see it as such an important opportunity to kick-start the ash fight-back.
“From our point of view it’s a great site because we know there’s lots of ash dieback there and that’s the best testing ground for any young ash.”
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_pioneering_attempt_to_find_ash_dieback_resistant_trees_1_1967912
December 23, 2012
Although there is no evidence of Chalara at the nursery, it has been banned from moving or selling the saplings as part of government action to prevent the spread of the disease.
A committee of MPs has now launched an inquiry to look at ash dieback and the way it has been handled.
Leader the inquiry, Anne McIntosh MP, told BBC Inside Out that Britain’s tree industry, which was importing saplings from Europe, needs to look at itself.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20680983
December 22, 2012
This is the first confirmed case on a Wildlife Trust nature reserve in Cambridgeshire, and also a first for the county’s ancient woodlands. The reserve remains open to visitors but, for biosecurity reasons, the public are reminded that if they do visit Gamlingay Wood to check their footwear on leaving and remove any organic matter.
http://www.wildlifebcn.org/news/2012/12/12/ash-dieback-arrives-cambridgeshire-ancient-woodland
December 10, 2012
Oliver Rackham was recently bemoaning the UK’s approach to woodland expansion being so dominated by tree planting, rather than natural regeneration. Not only are the resulting plantations artificial, but the whole process has encouraged the seedling trade across borders that is being blamed for ash dieback disease’s introduction to Britain.
One of the main reasons new woods are planted rather than regrown naturally is because we have such unnaturally high levels of herbivores. Young trees can only get away if they’re grown behind fences to protect them from teeth and the high costs of fencing and our current system of forestry grants has led to an urgency to get trees established in order to be able to claim grants quickly and recoup the outlay on fences.
So, is it time to think about returning some of our native carnivores, to keep the bunnies and deer under control, and reassert a bit of natural balance in our shattered and fragile ecosystems?
http://cybercrofter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/is-it-time-to-bring-back-bears.html
December 2, 2012
The seedlings that were placed into the ground came from generations of backcross breeding that date to the early 1980s. Matt Brinckman, the American Chestnut Foundation’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Science Coordinator, said the project began by crossing an American chestnut with a Chinese chestnut, which is resistant to the blight. The hybrids that were in turn resistant to the blight were crossed again with American chestnut — and again and again until scientists obtained a crossbreed that was 15/16 American chestnut and only 1/16 Chinese chestnut.
The American Chestnut Cooperators’ Foundation was co-founded by Gary Griffin, a plant pathologist at Virginia Tech. Instead of crossbreeding, that group has focused on finding the few remaining large American chestnut trees that have demonstrated partial blight resistance.
“We try to interbreed those to obtain greater levels of blight control,” Griffin said. “There aren’t many of these specimens, but we’ve found them and have been working with them for more than 30 years.”
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/317311
November 24, 2012
For decades and centuries – but particularly since the first world war and the formation of the Forestry Commission – ash woodland and individuals have been erased from the landscape, largely by modern forestry and agriculture, taking with them the associated culture and history, flora and fauna and much more. The loss of this welter of evidence is what our great woodland landscape historian, Dr Oliver Rackham, refers to when he talks of loss of meaning from the countryside. Such evidence often usually lost for good.
Of the diseased sites recently reported, 87 stands – nearly half the total – are either nursery sites or new plantings, so this time around, it seems that the finger of blame can be pointed more at conservationists and the horticultural trade than the forester.
I suspect that the blame lies firmly on the shoulders of conservation organisations and hobby foresters, planting new woods for amenity and environmental purposes. More often than not, trees are imported from the continent in generic broadleaved mixes, and planted as random, ill-thought-out patches across the countryside. Such plantings take no account of local landscape, or the natural composition of woodland in their locale, or indeed the likelihood of future colonisation by wild plants and animals. Such plantings are, in the words of one conservation chum, “mindless”, and merely results in “more dull woodland” (the words of another).
Such creation should aim to link and expand existing ancient semi-natural woodland blocks to maximise colonisation by wildlife and to facilitate sustainable management (bringing life-giving light into woodland that is so important to a wide diversity of woodland flowers, butterflies and much else). And above all, wherever possible, the jays and squirrels, and gravity and wind should be allowed to do the planting through natural regeneration. New woodlands would have so much more meaning than the lowest common denominator rubbish being planted at the present time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2012/nov/23/ash-dieback-tree-planting
Ash Dieback MONITOR .. 