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The Bigger Picture
4.9.02
RED ALERT/USAToday-New Fungus May Threaten ALL Trees In North America!
** Yes, That's RIGHT -- ALL Trees On the Continent!!
This is TRULY outrageously bad and very, very disturbing news here.
What's especially bizarre about this is that five years ago, a certain
Ed Dames made huge amounts of noise to the effect that he had, via
remote viewing, ascertained that the tail of Comet Hale-Bopp would
deposit on Earth a plant fungus genetically-engineered by a malevolent
alien race, which would in short order proceed to eradicate virtually
all plant life on the planet.
Probably NO ONE on Earth criticized Dames and his primary publicist Art
Bell more than John Quinn/NewsHawk for making these these outrageous and
profoundly frightening claims, which Dames and Bell repeated ad
infinitum for what seemed like several years. Especially after the comet
had passed and no evidence of any such killer fungus showed up, it
seemed unconscionable for Dames to go on repeating such horrific
assertions as hard fact.
But now -- we have THIS: what according to scores of researchers could
very likely BE a genetically-engineered plant fungus, never seen before;
which beginning with certain species of live and tan oak and other in
Northern California, has now begun to spread to MANY TOTALLY UNRELATED
species like maples and even to some CONIFERS -- some at least a hundred
miles away. Could Dames perhaps to some degree or other actually have
been CORRECT in his
This kind of frightening ability to transfer rapidly and aggressively to
so many totally unrelated species is something which has newer been seen
before in a a plant fungus, and has biologists, agriculturists, farmers,
timber companies, and just about EVERYBODY from coast to coast who knows
what up, as worried as hell. And with good reason.
If the worst fears of some researchers are even CLOSE to being on
target, this NEW plant disease could spell massive economic,
environmental and resultant social devastation and chaos throughout this
continent.
Big trouble!
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/acovtue.htm
Mystery oak disease may threaten nation's forests
By John Ritter, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO -- On the rolling hills
and low mountains of coastal Northern
California, green and lush now after winter rains, live oaks, tan oaks,
black oaks and madrones have been dying for more than two years. A
mysterious microscopic organism that causes Sudden Oak Death has been
found on a widening list of trees. Even the stately redwood, a
California icon as well as a valuable timber product, may be vulnerable.
But a far more troubling scenario is gaining currency among plant
pathologists and federal regulators: that the disease will make its way
out of California and infect the forests of the interior United States
with potentially disastrous results. Read more below
Sudden Oak Death wreaking havoc on California trees
That seemed unlikely until the organism suddenly appeared last fall on a
maple tree in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada more than 100 miles
away. If confirmed by tests on more samples, that would mean it had
somehow moved east from the Pacific coast across the agricultural
Central Valley -- signaling a highly aggressive pathogen capable of
adapting to new environments and different trees.
Dutch elm disease and chestnut blight, scourges that virtually wiped
whole species from the American landscape in the last century, began as
localized infestations. "Something like this could be transported on a
piece of luggage from one place to the next," says Jim Skiera, associate
executive director of the International Society of Arboriculture in
Champaign, Ill. "If it's as virulent as they say, it could be
devastating. It could have a huge economic impact if it hit multiple species."
Lab tests already have confirmed that the Sudden Oak Death pathogen,
Phytophthora ramorum, kills northern red oak, the dominant hardwood in
the U.S. timber industry and a preferred species in furniture, flooring,
cabinets and architectural interiors.
The disease is getting researchers' attention across the USA,
particularly where other varieties of Phytophthora infect native plants.
"It's certainly something that's not being ignored just because we're on
the right coast," says Don Ham, professor of forest resources at Clemson
University in South Carolina. "Our oak species can be susceptible, and
we want to be prepared."
A federal quarantine ordered this month bans shipping soil and plants
from more than a dozen host species outside 10 infected counties from
Monterey to Mendocino and one Oregon county, Curry, that has a small
infestation. Canada has gone further, prohibiting imports of soil and
host plants -- those infected by the pathogen -- from anywhere in
California. The state's $3 billion nursery industry complains that's
overkill because the disease hasn't been found in most of the state,
including Southern California.
But in Northern California, particularly hard-hit Marin, Santa Cruz,
Sonoma and Monterey counties, it has spread unchecked. Sudden Oak Death
-- it got its name before many non-oak hosts were identified -- first
caused alarm on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County north of
San Francisco. From a distance, dead and dying oaks look like random
clumps of yellow and gray on the forested mountainside.
An evergreen hardwood species that lives up to 250 years, live oaks are
indigenous to 10 million acres of the Pacific coast, prized flora that
add value and aesthetic charm to property. They generally grow 20 to 40
feet tall at elevations between 3,000 and 5,000 feet. Though they are
commercially worthless except as firewood because of their gnarled,
crooked trunks and branches, those same features create beauty and
endless variation on the coastal terrain.
Homeowners are appalled watching their precious oaks die by the
thousands. Once they notice the spiky roundish leaves turning yellow,
the rust-colored spots on the bark and a sticky black ooze bleeding from
the trunk, it's too late -- the tree's a goner.
So hard hit was China Camp State Park in Marin County that the state
closed campgrounds for several weeks to cut and remove hundreds of dead
trees. Santa Clara County will try to keep isolated disease pockets from
spreading by posting signs in parks asking bikers, hikers and horseback
riders to clean soil off their vehicles and possessions when they leave.
Officials worry that dead trees piling up will heighten the fire hazard
during California's long dry season. Hard-hit composting companies -- a
$200 million-a-year statewide industry -- can't ship goods from
quarantined counties.
Disease's origin stumps experts
Sudden Oak Death is considered a formidable pest even for California,
which spends $27 million a year controlling the fruit- and
vegetable-eating med fly and has raised $50 million to fight the
glassy-winged sharpshooter, a leaf-hopping insect that preys on grape vines.
The federal government has allocated $85 million for Sudden Oak Death
research, but scientists still don't know how or where the disease got
started, precisely how it spreads or how to eradicate it. They do know
that once Phytophthora ramorum spores penetrate bark in the trunk, the
organism eats away the cambium, a layer of tissue that conducts
nutrients through the tree, in a matter of months. By tree-disease
standards, that is an unusually short time.
Scientists are racing for answers on several fronts. They're trying to
understand the biology and genetics of Phytophthora ramorum. They're
studying whether pollution or short-term climate changes might have
sparked the disease. They're looking at how the disease fits into the
forest dynamic, whether animals and other plants play a role. Because
oaks are popular trees in residential areas, humans may be a factor,
through pruning and other tree-management techniques.
The disease has surprised researchers at every turn. At first they
couldn't figure out how it spread from oak to oak. Other known
Phytophthora species live in soil and attack trees at their roots. But
trees suffering from Sudden Oak Death had no root damage. Eventually
they discovered that other trees -- bay laurels, maples, buckeyes --
were infected and spreading Phytophthora spores through the air. Azaleas
and rhododendrons are also hosts.
It was 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."
Garbelotto and another scientist, David Rizzo at the University of
California-Davis, are the first to use DNA technology on a new forest
disease. They isolated Phytophthora ramorum's DNA, tested hundreds of
samples for its presence and identified 14 hosts in just 18 months, a
process that would have taken years under conventional plant-pathology
methods. More hosts are likely to be identified.
They've probably slowed Sudden Oak Death's spread because their findings
allow state and federal regulators to act quickly to ban movement of
additional host plants from nurseries. The scientists have asked the
U.S. Energy Department to fund gene mapping of the pathogen.
But what eludes them is a cure. In the lab they're studying organic
chemicals, biological compounds 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, too,
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.
Some speculate that several wetter-than-normal winters are linked to the
emergence of Sudden Oak Death. The pathogen is a fungus-like organism
similar to algae that thrives in moist conditions. Others think
pollution is a culprit, but Garbelotto discounts that. He says
environmental factors could have sparked change in the pathogen, but he
sees little evidence that they weakened the oaks.
"I don't buy the direct relationship to pollution," he says. "We can
infect very healthy trees and still kill them." The disease has not
wiped out whole forests, and Garbelotto believes many coast live oaks
may have enough tolerance to survive the pathogen.
Redwoods may be endangered
Unknowns puzzle the scientists, chief among them how far the disease
will spread and what other species might succumb to it. The discovery of
spores on redwoods is particularly sensitive in California, where giant
redwoods are a major tourist draw and redwood timber is a $500
million-a-year industry.
Spores could have been splashed on a few redwoods and they'll have no
effect. Or redwoods may turn out to be hosts. In the worst-case
scenario, the trees are susceptible to the disease. Garbelotto and Rizzo
are trying to infect mature redwoods with Phytophthora ramorum to see if
they're susceptible. Test results won't be known until later this year.
"At this point we have no evidence to suggest the disease affects the
big redwoods," Garbelotto says.
If redwoods come under quarantine and lumber must be treated to get rid
of the pathogen before it can be shipped, those pricey redwood decks
will get even pricier, and small timber companies would suffer.
"It could be an economic disaster for a lot of people. It could
potentially put us out of business," says Bud McCrary, co-owner of Big
Creek Lumber Co. in Santa Cruz. "How would you show that that particular
lumber doesn't have any of those spores?"
An even more intriguing question is whether Phytophthora ramorum has
migrated or been carried to the Sierra Nevada. Scientists need more than
a positive DNA sample from a single tree to confirm that it has.
Garbelotto is eager to collect more samples when the snow melts in the mountains.
All bets would be off if the pathogen is confirmed there in a climate
wholly different from the coast. One of the West's major ecosystems
could be threatened. And the theory that the disease might be incapable
of wreaking harm in a new environment would be open to doubt.
"We saw Dutch elm disease devastate America's elms. We saw the same
thing with chestnut blight years ago," says John Rosenow, president of
the National Arbor Day Foundation in Lincoln, Neb. "Oaks are such an
important tree nationwide that we certainly hope scientists can isolate
it to a small area."
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Other tree enemies
Dutch elm disease. Fungus
introduced from Europe,
discovered in Ohio in 1930.
Spread from Florida to Quebec
and west to the Great Plains
over the next 60 years.
Transformed urban landscapes
by wiping out most large native
elms.
Chestnut blight. Epidemic from
fungus discovered in New York
City in 1904 destroyed trees
from Georgia to Maine and
southern Ontario and as far
west as Indiana. Few large trees
survived.
Gypsy moth. Insect imported
from Europe in 1865. Preys on
many species but prefers oaks.
The moths moved out of the
Northeast after the pesticide
DDT was banned in the 1970s
and caused wide damage in the
Appalachians. Now seen as far
west as Michigan.
White pine blister rust.
Fungus on both coasts,
discovered in 1906 in Geneva,
N.Y. Lethal to eastern and
western species of white pine.
Hemlock woolly adelgid.
Insect threatening hemlocks in
eastern North America for the
past 20 years.
Fusiform rust. Organism
infecting southern pines in
commercial single-species
forests in the Southeast. Losses
in tree nurseries can exceed
80%.
Bronze birch borer. Small
beetle's larval stage associated
with die-offs in the entire range
of North American birch, from the
eastern USA to Alaska.
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