Don't Tell the Trees
What is going on? While I was at university there was Dutch Elm Disease - a fungus carried by wood-boring beetles, imported into the UK on elm trees in their bark. There are still elm trees in the UK. A few. Nothing like the thousands which used to stand out in hedge rows and other places.
Some years back there was something about Horse Chestnut trees - the leaves were turning brown and crisp at the edges while they were still green.
Then there's Ash Die-Back. It turned up in the UK a few years back and, instead of being confined while it was very few cases, is now rampaging through the UK's ash trees. OK, so some places are looking for resistant strains of ash tree and trying to multiply them. But, think about it, Dear Reader, what good will virtually monoclonal ash trees be? One disease to which that strain is prone and lo, all ash trees gone from the UK.
I heard something the other day about there being some form of oak problem too. Good grief! What are we going to be left with in the way of trees? That's without the effects of climate change. The UK weather appears to be getting (generally) warmer and stormier. The number of trees which have blown down this winter and spring - there were yet more down due to Storm Katie at the start of this week - means that there are just fewer trees. Should we get storms through the summer, when the trees are in leaf, even more will come down. Trees in leaf offer more resistance to the wind.
With the general warming some people have taken to trying new crops. Several places are growing olives. And therein lies another rub. Apparently Europe's olive industry is at threat from the bacterial pathogen Xylella fastidiosa. Hmmm, maybe people will sit up and take notice in this case. Olives are grown world-wide as crops. Money is involved. So the search is on for strains of olive which are resistant to the pathogen, and ways of either killing it, or somehow immunising the trees. Which, I suppose, is encouraging.
It still leaves me wondering though. What will the UK have left in the way of trees?
Y'all have a good day now!
Some years back there was something about Horse Chestnut trees - the leaves were turning brown and crisp at the edges while they were still green.
Then there's Ash Die-Back. It turned up in the UK a few years back and, instead of being confined while it was very few cases, is now rampaging through the UK's ash trees. OK, so some places are looking for resistant strains of ash tree and trying to multiply them. But, think about it, Dear Reader, what good will virtually monoclonal ash trees be? One disease to which that strain is prone and lo, all ash trees gone from the UK.
I heard something the other day about there being some form of oak problem too. Good grief! What are we going to be left with in the way of trees? That's without the effects of climate change. The UK weather appears to be getting (generally) warmer and stormier. The number of trees which have blown down this winter and spring - there were yet more down due to Storm Katie at the start of this week - means that there are just fewer trees. Should we get storms through the summer, when the trees are in leaf, even more will come down. Trees in leaf offer more resistance to the wind.
With the general warming some people have taken to trying new crops. Several places are growing olives. And therein lies another rub. Apparently Europe's olive industry is at threat from the bacterial pathogen Xylella fastidiosa. Hmmm, maybe people will sit up and take notice in this case. Olives are grown world-wide as crops. Money is involved. So the search is on for strains of olive which are resistant to the pathogen, and ways of either killing it, or somehow immunising the trees. Which, I suppose, is encouraging.
It still leaves me wondering though. What will the UK have left in the way of trees?
Y'all have a good day now!