Chalara fraxinea v veteran trees question.

[Sal]

Apologies if this has an obvious answer or has been covered before, but my question comes from things I've heard over the last couple of days.

I had already read a paper on 'Natural infection of Fraxinus excelsior seeds by Chalara fraxinea' which suggested that 'It is possible that the development of C.fraxinea may be less successful when subjected to competition from other fungal communities'.

I know that the above was talking about seeds but at Knepp on Weds, Lynne Boddy spoke about fungi essentially 'fighting for supremacy' within the tree and then on Thurs at Ashstead, Vickki Bengtsson touched on how veteran trees may take longer to suffer from C.fraxinea.

My question then (finally) is whether veteran/older Ash trees may already be colonized by a fungi which is in turn offering some kind of delay/protection from the Chalara?

If anyone can point me in the direction of further papers it'd be much appreciated

[Gnarlyoak]

Sorry I cannot answer your question directly.

 

But from the item presented on this evenings Countryfile program on BBC1, the impression I get is that CF will act more quickly on younger Ash trees than it will on older mature trees.

It will take upto 10 years or more before the full impact on individual trees can be ascertained, but with the exception of 2-5% of the ash tree stock that have a natural immunity, ALL will eventually succumb to this fungus!

 

So all ash trees including veterans are likely to get this disease, its just a question of time........