Dutch Elm Disease?

[DuncanH]

We have a small wood which was planted up 8 years ago as a coppice rotation with blocks of hazel and blocks of elm. The reason for the elm was to provide food for a population of white letter hairstreak butterflies which we know are nearby. Elm is their only food source.

The plan was to coppice the elm regularly to keep them low and hopefully avoid DED. We've had a few years of coppicing but haven't yet got through each block once.

 

This summer I noticed some of the top tips of the larger trees (just big enough to be splitting their tree tubes) were dying off - loosing leaves and snapping. Obviously my first thought was DED so I read up on it when I got back and on the next visit I cut down a tree (maybe 8cm diameter at the base) which was showing the symptoms. Removing bark and scraping back a little I found what appears to be fungal growth in most of the areas I checked - near the base and at various points along the tree.

When I looked online the tips dying and snapping appears to be a common first symptom of DED referred to as Shepherd’s crooks.
What I've seen below the bark doesn't exactly match photos I've seen online for DED but perhaps I've found it in the early stages, or maybe it's something else. Yesterday I cut down 10+ trees in one small area and every one I checked except 1 had marks below the bark - some of them were over 10cm diameter and some were no more than 5cm. Height wise they ranged from around 2m to over 4m. None of them had the dark streaking which is shown in most symptom lists and none had obvious marks/dark rings when I looked at the freshly cut surfaces. I didn't see any signs of beetle activity in the trees I cut.

 

So, is this DED or could it be something else? Either way, it looks as though we'll need to cut the elm blocks as a priority over this winter.

Thanks for any help

 

Duncan

 

photos attached...

 

[Khriss]

Saddening, but you ocassionally find a good stout Elm, that for whatever reason has avoided the trashing it's neighbours get-I would try to clone that one so hopefully some resistance is built up over the decades. K