Sudden Oak Death Campaign
A new disease called "sudden oak death" has sparked fears that the English oak may be wiped out in Britain. Dragon is calling for eco-magic work to try to stop the spread of the disease.
The first confirmed UK case of the disease in an established tree was annouced on 5th November 2003. The disease was found on a single Southern red oak tree in Sussex. The tree was growing in an area where P. ramorum had earlier been confirmed as causing disease on rhododendrons.
Full details are in a press release from the Forestry Commision.
A new disease called "sudden oak death" which has sparked fears that the English oak may be wiped out in Britain has led the government to ban plant imports from parts of America where the the disease is rampant.
The fungus, Phytophthora ramorum, which occurs in garden shrubs as well as oaks, has been discovered in four British nurseries in West Sussex, Lincolnshire, Dorset and Lancashire. The plants involved have been seized and burned.
The alarm was first raised in America where oaks have been dying in their thousands in the last two years. In California, Oregon and other states cankers develop on trees and they appear to bleed to death as sap spills from them turning red and running down the trunk. Infected trees die in months.
Roddie Burgess, head of plant health at the Forestry Commission, said "We are dealing with the unknown here. We do not know how great the threat is but there is a severe mortality rate among American oaks. It is possible that English oaks may have resistance but we just do not know…Four types of American oaks get the disease and it is fatal."
It's a brand new species of Phytophthora, never before identified, airborne and aggressive, with no known natural enemies. "For the first time we have an organism that can infect a broad host range of plants in this country, with a biology that's completely unknown," says Matteo Garbelotto, a forest pathologist at the University of California- Berkeley. "It's like all of a sudden finding a very poisonous snake that can fly."
Scientists are desperately looking for a cure. They're studying organic chemicals that might prevent infection by Phytophthora spores. They're testing different types of protective trunk coatings that could be applied to a tree. They're also trying to develop ways to boost a tree's own defensive response. But nothing yet has proved a magic bullet. Another option is simply removing host species like bay laurel from the forests, but that could have unknown effects on an ecosystem.
Knowing where Phytophthora ramorum came from would help, but that remains a mystery. It could be an exotic organism, accidentally introduced from a locale where native plants have resistance to it. Once here, it feasts on hosts that have no defense. It could be a new species produced by genetic change, a hybrid with a potent effect on oaks. Or it could have been present all along, benign until an unknown factor caused it to become destructive.
The first UK outbreak was found in April 2002 in England. The first finding in Scotland was recorded in May 2002.
Since then, the organism has been found at 17 horticultural premises in Scotland and 110 in England and Wales. It has also been found on the Channel Isles.
The above information
is from:
www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4407233,00.html
and www.nynjtc.org/externalnews/2002/sodd.html
More recent News
from The Guardian, March 3 2004:
Oak disease at two gardens
"A strain of a disease which has destroyed thousands of tan oak trees
in the United States has been found in two Cornish formal gardens, the
Lost Gardens of Heligan, and Caerhays, a few miles to the South."
www.scotland.gov.uk/pages/news/2002/10/SEEN212.aspx
News about the disease in Scotland
www.defra.gov.uk/news/2002/020503bquanda.htm
Gives DEFRA's position on Phytophthora ramorum fungus & risks
www.suddenoakdeath.org/
California Oak Mortality Task Force homepage
Dragon has been discussing this issue on our eco-magic e-mail list. Possible approaches for magical intervention in this potential crisis could be:
(a) To increase awareness of the issue in governmental circles & in general
(b) To direct 'bursts' of inspiration/creativity at those groups/individuals who are seeking to understand the origins of Phytophthora ramorum and direct to management/containment plans for threatened tree species.
c) Try to enter a dialogue with the fungus and/or the oak tree Spirit to find out the best way forward. You might use images of the Phytophthora ramorum to help you.
d) Magically build up the oaks' immune system
e) Call to a bacterial predator of the fungus.
Theory:
Oak trees thrive in old forests which have thick layers of rich soil.
This kind of soil has billions of diverse organisms in just a handfull,
so suitable predators which are endogenous to the UK should not be too
far away.
Statistically, it's very likely that the UK has a local bacteria somewhere which can eat the fungus. The problem is getting the two together, leading a horse to water, so to speak.
Or to put it another way, it's a bit like cursing the fungus with a bacterial illness whilst specifying that the bacteria has to occur naturally in the UK in an oak forest environment.
Action:
- Contact the collective spirit of bacteria which live in oak forest soil which can become predators of the fungus,
- Persuade them to go get it!
E-mail us with your ideas and suggestions.
Recent suggestions:
Fi Saint channeled a suggestion for a natural predator- ants