Sudden oak death
My local paper just published a warning about buying plants from Oregon. The advice is DON"T. Several Maryland gardeners appear to have gotten the sudden death organism in the soil for plants that they mail ordered from an Oregon nursery. MDA is not naming the nursery but every one who has received plants from that nursery is getting a test kit from MDA. MDA is urging every one who got a kit to return it promptly so the the results can be tabulated.
I recall when a move was afoot to restrict shipments from California due to the sudden oak death organism and Cal put up a howl. Now tell me, isn't California the state with the most restrictive plant import regulations.
The State of Maryland Department of Agriculture has had an emerald ash borer trap in my ash tree all summer because they are trying to contain an infestation caused by a Michigan nursery that illegally shipped ash saplings to a nursery near me. I believe that quarantines are necessary even if nurserymen sometimes ignore them.
BJ
Gardening, cooking and woodworking in South'n Murlyn'
Edited 10/23/2009 11:59 pm ET by BeeJay
Gardening, cooking and woodworking in South'n Murlyn'
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(post #11539, reply #1 of 5)
I'd never heard of 'Sudden death' syndrome so I googled it. I guess you mean Sudden Oak Death. Here's the link to the story I found in one of your local papers. They're asking you not to order from California and Washington state also, not just Oregon.
http://www.somdnews.com/stories/10212009/indytop174102_32182.shtml
(post #11539, reply #2 of 5)
For quite a while all Christmas trees (and that is millions) shipped out of Michigan were supposed to be sprayed or fumigated before they were shipped. I don't know if that restriction has been lifted now or not, but sometimes those quarantines are really important. I think on the whole it is good to purchase as much of your plants as possible from local sources, but we gardeners always want everything, whether it is right for our climates or not. I used to get a catalog from Oregon that had the most amazing selection of azaelias and rhododendrons but I had to stop myself because they really do not do all that well here. But I still want the one called "Woody's Friggin' Riggin" (honestly) because of the name. The rhodos that have done the best for me so far are the ones I got very small and they slowly grew into the conditions here. Those big ones in the smallish tubs do not have a healthy root system much of the time.
(post #11539, reply #3 of 5)
Sudden Oak Death or Phytopthera ramorum first showed up in the San Francisco Bay Area about a decade ago. It hit hard and fast killing a huge number of oaks, with Tanbark Oaks (Lithocarpus densiflorus) being the hardest hit. It was soon found to affect a number of plants besides oaks and a number of other plants were found to host the fungus without affect. Because California had (maybe still has) the largest nursery industry of any state it didn't take long for the fungus to spread. Keep in mind, this is one of those fungi that can travel on vehicles that drive through infected areas too, and it's believed birds can spread it in the wild. A totally isolated pocket of the infection was found in the wilds of Southwestern Oregon, for instance, that could not have had a connection to the nursery industry. Fortunately, Oregon's native Oak (Quercus garryana) is unaffected by the fungus. Unfortunately, we got it from imported nursery stock and, since Oregon has the second largest nursery industry, the impact was scary. The state quickly put in place a serious inspection and eradication program, and that program is still in place today. Any nursery that ships out of state has to submit itself to the program and can't get the required stamp to ship without it. There are, of course, nurseries that ship without being part of the inspection program. The article Deb linked to doesn't make any mention of this, so there is no way of knowing whether the recent problem where you are came from inspected stock or not.
For all of the scare this pest raises, it hasn't killed very much of anything here. It was found in a number of nurseries, and quite a lot was sold before the eradication program got going, but we don't have plants dying right, left and center because of it. We've never had to respond to it the way we do to some of the other pests.
All of this is not intended to say you have nothing to worry about, just don't panic. An outright quarantine of everything Oregonian would, in my mind, be needless overreaction.
Marty
"The plants have been good to us." Lester Hawkins
Marty
"The plants have been good to us." Lester Hawkins
(post #11539, reply #4 of 5)
Michigan also has some version of the oak problem, but it is generally referred to as oak wilt, where perfectly healthy oak trees will suddenly have their leaves wilt. I'm not perfectly sure if the trees always die or not, but my husband (a forester by profession) says it is fairly common. However I haven't seen any oak trees looking stressed in our neighborhood and there are many around here. Is this the same as the symtoms of the sudden oak death?
(post #11539, reply #5 of 5)
It's a different fungus and the symptomology is a bit different. I don't believe SOD travels from the root of one plant to the root of another; oak wilt does. Also, if I remember rightly, insects carry oak wilt a lot but not SOD. Both seem to have varying degrees of lethality from species to species.
Marty
"The plants have been good to us." Lester Hawkins
Marty
"The plants have been good to us." Lester Hawkins