Oak-killing Disease appears in Indiana
Pastor Dale Morgan
Oak-killing Disease appears in Indiana *
The Associated Press
August 03, 2006 7:01 p.m. ET
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A tree disease that's killed hundreds of thousands
of oak trees in California is now in Indiana after arriving in a
shipment of shrubs from Oregon, state officials said.
The funguslike organism that causes Sudden Oak Death by encircling oak
trees and strangling them was found two weeks ago in a Viburnum shrub at
a Sears Hardware in Portage, state entomologist Robert Waltz said.
"It's worrisome. It's a very bad pathogen, no doubt about it," he said.
The disease, Phytophthora ramorum, doesn't spread from oak to oak but to
oaks from host plants such as rhododendrons and maple trees.
The infected shrub in Portage was buried in a landfill, but Waltz said
there is no way to know whether other plants sold to the public might
have been infected.
"All we know is that at least one plant was infected, but whether there
were two plants or 10 plants, we don't know," he said.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources tested the plants after
being alerted by federal officials.
Officials have not decided whether to track plants bought at the store,
which might be difficult in the case of cash purchases, Waltz said, or
to put out a public alert.
The pathogen, which appeared suddenly in California and Western Europe
in the mid-1990s, has been found in 14 California counties, southern
Oregon and Washington, said Brian L. Anacker, a researcher at Sonoma
State University in California.
Indiana is considered at moderate risk, but Waltz said most of its
forests are in the southern part of the state, where the pathogen might
be able to gain a foothold. If it did, the damage could be significant.
About half of all Indiana trees more than 20 inches in diameter are oak,
state foresters have said, and the state has about 1.8 million acres of
oak and hickory-type forests. Lumber is the fifth-largest industry in
the state.
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Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com