STEM AND BRANCH PATHOLOGY TOPICS Organisms involved Causes Types of diseases and causal genera and species Management

  1. Causes - both abiotic and biotic agents Abiotic agents - wind and branch and stem breakage (increased by decay), ice and snow breakage, lightning, lawn mower and weed whacker injury, etc. Biotic agents – phytoplasmas, bacteria, fungi, mistletoes, (not many viruses in stems and branches of woody plants).

2. Organisms involved   a. Phytoplasmas – yellows, wilts b. Bacteria  - galls

c. Fungi True Fungi Ascomycota and Deuteromycota (Fungi Imperfecti) - cankers   Basidiomycota – decay fungi Fungus-like organisms Oomycota (stem cankers occasionally – Sudden oak death)

  d. Parasitic plants true mistletoes – hardwoods dwarf mistletoes – conifers

3. Types of diseases and common causal genera or species Stem Decay – Ganoderma applanatum (Artist conk – conifers and hardwoods) Postia sericeomolis – Pocket rot of W. redcedar Phellinus igniarius - common on willow, alder and other hardwoods Fomes fomentarius – white spongy trunk rot Hardwoods –birch, alder, poplar Fomitopsis pinicola – Red belt fungus (mostly dead conifers) Phaeolus schweintizii (conifers).

b. Mistletoes - conifers (dwarf mistletoes - Arceuthobium), hardwoods (true mistletoes - Phoradendron) c. Cankers (Nectria, Cytospora, Hypoxylon (hardwoods), Neofusicoccum (madrone) , Phytophthora Galls (Agrobacterium tumefacians (many hosts), western gall rust caused by Endocronartium harknessii - lodgepole pine

e. Rusts (White pine blister rust (5 needle pines) - Cronartium ribicola, western gall rust - Endocronartium harknessii, f. Vascular wilts - Dutch elm disease (Ophiostoma ulmi), Verticillium wilt, fireblight of cherries

STEM DECAYS

Ganoderma applanatum – Artist Conk

Artist conk on crabapple on campus

Postia sericeomolis – Pocket rot of cedar

Phellinus igniarius - common on willow, alder and other hardwoods

Fomes fomentarius – white spongy trunk rot Hardwoods –birch, alder, poplar

Fomitopsis pinicola – Red belt fungus

Phaeolus schweinitzii

COMPARTMENTALIZATION OF DECAY

Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees - CODIT

Wall 1 -Vertical ends of Cells – tracheids and vessels - weakest Wall 2 - Internal annual rings Wall 3 - Ray parenchyma cells o Phenolic chemicals laid down (fungicidal) Wall 4 - Annual ring at the time of wounding - strongest

WILDLIFE ASSOCIATED WITH DECAY IN LIVING TREES

WILDLIFE USING DECAYED TREES Bats Black bears Woodpeckers - number of species American Martens Vaux’s swifts Owls Red-breasted nuthatch

CREATION OF DECAY AND HABITAT

SNAG CREATION METHODS 1. Topping at base of live crown or mid live crown 2. Girdling at different heights 3. Herbicides 4. Pheromones to attract bark beetles 5. Killing dwarf mistletoe infected trees 6. Planting artifical snags ARTIFICIAL INOCULATION OF SNAGS AND GREEN TREES

Decay and hazard trees e.g. Phaeolus schweinitzii

DETECTION OF DECAY 1. Increment borers 2. Wood drills 3. Shigometer - electrical resistance 4. Resistograph - physical resistance 5. Ultrasound travel 6. Sonic tomography

Increment borers

Battery Power Drills

SHIGOMETER USDA Forest Service

Resistograph - Trademark

ULTRASOUND USDA Forest Service

TOMOGRAPHY http://www.fujikura.co.uk/special/picus/picus.htm http://www.argyll-arborists.co.uk/PicusSonicTomograph.htm