Ash Dieback disease is starting to take hold

Driving around the Somerset countryside I am seeing increasing numbers of sickly looking ash trees with weak foliage growth and dead branches appearing in the canopy.

I fear this is a sign that the deadly Ash Dieback disease or Chalara fraxinea is beginning to take hold. Chalara is a fungus spread by wind borne spores and so its control is impossible.

Ash trees suffering from the infection have been found widely across Europe since trees were first reported dying in large numbers in Poland in 1992. It was not until February 2012 that it was first confirmed in the UK when it was found in a consignment of infected trees sent from a nursery in the Netherlands to a nursery in Buckinghamshire.

In October 2012, scientists from the Food & Environment Research Agency confirmed a small number of cases in Norfolk and Suffolk in ash trees in the wider natural environment, which did not appear to have any association with recently supplied nursery stock.

Further finds in trees in the wider environment have since been confirmed in a number of places, mostly in the east and south-east of England. In May 2013 the first wider-environment case was found in south-west Wales.

Having had suspicions that the disease may now be in Somerset I looked at the Forestry Commission website where there is an interactive map and sure enough I found the disease has now been discovered in the three 10km grid squares around my home patch near Wells.

So my worst fears may well be correct because if our ash trees become affected in the same manner as those on the continent there is likely to be a mortality rate of well over 90 per cent. This will have a devastating effect on our landscape as the ash is one of the commonest woodland and hedgerow tree species.

So, before any farmers vote to get out of Europe because of all the hassle associated with regulations, they need to ask themselves some serious questions.

It seems there is little we can do other than hope that some resistant genetic strains may develop. This is a possibility because the ash does reproduce prolifically, to the extent that it has in places almost been considered a weed species.

Lets hope that within this genetic diversity some saplings will survive to breeding age and re-populate our woodlands in due course.

However, in the meantime this is a timely reminder of the vulnerability of our tree species in particular, which being long lived and slow growing organisms can be devastated by the introduction of a new disease such as Chalara.

Sadly these diseases usually come from some form of imported tree or timber product and government need to take biosecurity measures far more seriously.  

James Stephen MRICS FAAV
Partner
Rural Practice Chartered Surveyor, Wells
T: 01749 683381
E: james.stephen@carterjonas.co.uk