honey fungus spread

[jjll]

If a tree is infected with honey fungus, does all the timber need to be burnt/disposed of as soon as its cut? A customer has a large horse chestnut and wanted to keep some timber to process for firewood.im assuming that keeping the wood and storing it for firewood could spread the disease??

[daltontrees]

As an experiment I have kept some Armillaria infected wood in my wood store to see how it behaves. As expected, as soon as it is isolated from ongoing water supply i.e. stored out of teh rain and off wet grounbd the Armillaria ceased activity. As you may know, it can spread by rhizomorphs, hyphae or spores, the first of these allowing it to spread beyond immediately wet wood or a water source. No water, no activity! I don't even see how processed firewood could hold enough resurces for Armillaria to produce fruiting bodies and spread by spores.

In my experience the risk of spread from processed and propely stored firewood is negligible. And certainly trivial compared to if the stump is to be left in the ground, that's just asking for trouble for any nearby susceptible species.