Agency delays plan targeting sudden oak death

Nurseries say APHIS order provides more paperwork, but not more protection

By MITCH LIES

Capital Press

Federal officials provided West Coast nurseries breathing room this week when they delayed a new requirement for shipping nursery stock that can host sudden oak death.

But the delay falls short of easing industry concerns.

USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service officials earlier this month told West Coast agriculture officials they planned to delay by as much as three weeks implementation of the federal order. It was initially scheduled to start June 21.

The order requires nurseries in Oregon, Washington and California to notify receiving states in writing when they ship nursery stock that can host Phytophthora ramorum, the fungus associated with sudden oak death.

Read the full article here - http://www.capitalpress.com/orewash/ml-sod-federal-order-062510

Two nurseries positive for P. ramorum in May

Washington was found to have two P. ramorum-positive nurseries in May. (1) On 5/3 a Thurston County wholesale/production nursery was found to have P. ramorum-positive Mahonia nervosa and Viburnum tinus as a result of a nursery compliance inspection. This nursery ships interstate and was previously positive for P. ramorum in 2008. Trace-forward and -back investigations are underway. (2) A Snohomish County wholesale nursery was determined to have P. ramorum-positive Rhododendron sp. on 5/6 as a result of a nursery compliance inspection. This nursery ships interstate and was previously positive for P. ramorum in 2008. Trace-forward and -back investigations are underway.

A Tale of Three Nurseries

A heartwarming (or frightening) tale of three nurseries, reposted from the Oregon Invasive Species blog:

Once upon a time there were three nurseries. As long as people could remember, these nurseries had been growing and selling plants to satisfied customers. The nurseries were called: Clean and Green, Pretty Good Plants, and Cuttin Corners....

read the whole story here:
http://oregoninvasivespecies.blogspot.com/2010/06/tale-of-three-nurseries.html

SOD found in South Wales on larch

Forestry Commission experts are working to contain the spread of Phytophthora ramorum infection to Japanese larch trees in South Wales.

Phytophthora ramorum (P. ramorum) is a fungus-like pathogen that kills many of the trees and plants that it infects. Japanese larch trees infected by P. ramorum were first found in South West England last year, the only place in the world where it has attacked large numbers of a commercially grown species of conifer tree.

This development was a step change in the pathogen’s behaviour. Since first being identified in Britain in 2002, on a viburnum plant in a garden centre, it had affected mostly shrub and ground-cover plants such as rhododendron, viburnum and bilberry. Fewer than 100 infected trees – mostly beech - had been found, and most of those were standing close to infected rhododendron bushes.

Although it has been confirmed in only one area of larch forest in Wales so far, Forestry Commission Wales expects to find more as ground inspections follow up the aerial surveys that have pinpointed suspect areas of woodland. Scientists at the Commission’s Forest Research arm believe it likely that the spores that spread the disease have been spread to the larch forests in rain, mists and air currents carried across the Bristol Channel from the South-west, where it was confirmed in Japanese larch last September.

Roddie Burgess, Head of the Forestry Commission’s Plant Health Service, said the Commission and its partners are taking the development very seriously, but hope to be able to contain it.

Read the complete article here:

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/newsrele.nsf/AllByUNID/11FB60906B36B2C68025773D005CD276