Chalara fraxinea - Generic thread

[MattyF]

Would just add those two tree photos were taken high up in northern England , it would appear most I've seen past Newcastle are in full leaf now.

[openspaceman]

Ash tree genome sequenced for first time - BBC News

 

It looks like the Danish ash trees succumbed quickly because they had little genetic diversity but thosegrowing in UK have 25% genes that are unique?? to UK?

[markieg31]

I have noticed loads of roadside ash trees with varying stages of crown die back.

inner part of crown generally looking okay but tips will have satlks where keys once were and the stem will be a slighlty darker shade of brown then the healthy bits. Not noticed any legions. If its die back then we got **** loads here in west somerset, lots of smaller trees and some larger showing similar signs.

[Watercourse management]

It's really taking hold in my part of Norfolk now,looking out of my window now I can see 4 trees with dieback,but also a lot of neighbouring ash showing no symptoms at all so hopefully they will survive.

[the village idiot]

The Woodland I mange in Suffolk is jam packed with Ash. I would estimate that over 90% of the Ash have depleted crowns. Too early to say if it is all Chalara (or whatever it is properly called these days), but not a good omen.

Lesions are very evident on the very young trees.

[Watercourse management]

No lesions on mature trees but major dieback in the crown now becoming really noticeable,felled 40 odd thirty year old ash last week in banham with various stages of crown dieback,it looked like some of them had been sprayed of with a hormone herbicide.

[timbernut]

It's rife everywhere in EA, I've really noticed ashs decline over the last couple of years particularly when felling in coppice (where ash crowns used t bounce nicely when they hit the deck they now shatter) and starting to see more bramble etc under what were denser canopies due t thinning crowns.

In my own wood I was relying on its seed for vigorous natural regen when I remove conifers but 99% of the seedling die within 3yrs[emoji45]

Norfolk CC have just taken on a friend of mine as part of an "ash dieback team" they've set up to survey/tackle the 'situation'

 

 

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[Gary Prentice]

I'm told that there's only one or two confirmed cases around Manchester, but the FC don't appear to be responding to identification requests (even from LAs), so it may be a case that it's more widespread than thought.

 

I imagine that the FC are pretty stretched with regard to this, I'm not complaining.

 

Personally, I think we have to be pragmatic. Some ash will have natural immunity due to genetics, they will reproduce and eventually this problem will resolve itself. Might take a few hundred years which seems forever, but in evolutionary terms insignificant.

[David Humphries]

We have young natural regen ash saplings with it in London

 

 

 

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[Gary Prentice]

Is that because you are looking for die back and assuming it is Chalara, which of course it may, or may not, be.

 

Quite a few years ago, pre-Chalara, there was a study of die back in ash. I think it was conducted by Oxford University. It was suggested, if I recall correctly, that the reasons for the die back were to do with farming practices, particularly ploughing right up to the trees. The worst area in the country for the die back was around Newport Pagnell, I think.

 

The reason Chalara is now accepted as so wide spread is because people are looking for it, and finding it. But not all die back will be Chalara related. If you suspect it, then confirm it from the other symptons, not just die back.

 

Agrilus planipennis

 

I'm not sure how much resources the FC are putting into tracking Chalara. It's a lost cause in that respect. It's everywhere. Even if it's not shown on the DEFRA map it's only because no one has looked in those grid squares, according to the FC.

 

 

EAB, ALB, climate change, the list goes on. Well if none of those get them, I'll stand on my theory.