A Race to Save a Signature American Tree from a Deadly Disease

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/realestate/beech-leaf-disease.html

by jgwil2 • 11 months ago

40 26 11 months ago

SoftTalker4• 11 months ago

Emerald ash borer got all the ash trees on my wooded property a few years ago. Pretty amazing to watch that happen in real time.

bevr13374• 11 months ago

Can ash splints still be made from the trees they infest? Do you burn the trees? Very curious to hear more about your experience

SoftTalker4• 11 months ago

Right now they are just standing dead. I need to do something about that soon.

margalabargala• 11 months ago

They usually just stand there. There are too many to easily take down, and are mixed in with other trees.

The whole east half of the continental US is one large storm away from thousands of fallen dead trees.

Jgrubb• 11 months ago

Good grief, another one?

pfdietz3• 11 months ago

Welcome to the Homogenocene, where ecosystems across the world are irreversibly mixed. All those species that depended on isolation? Sorry Charlie.

ctoth• 11 months ago

I was watching Star Wars recently and a little voice in the back of my head kept freaking out about the lack of biosecurity -- "sure let's just tromp directly from this planet to another one without even changing our shoes!"

comrade1234• 11 months ago

They (the European version at least) also have a symbiotic relationship with Trumpet of the Dead. There's an ancient forest near me with beach trees and you find the black trumpets in areas where there's several very old and giant beach trees in proximity.

amanaplanacanal• 11 months ago

I've also recently learned about Sudden Oak Death, a fungus which is ravaging forests in California and Oregon. Evidently it is unknown where it came from.

Amezarak• 11 months ago

It's really wild. I wonder what trees we'll have left!

Besides the famous case of the chestnut:

Dogwoods are being wiped out, mostly gone in some areas, disease originating from Asia: https://henderson.ces.ncsu.edu/2021/03/native-dogwoods-long-...

Sassafras trees wiped out by Asian beetle causing laurel wilt: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/articles/page1685633928383

American elms largely wiped out by Dutch elm disease (also actually originates from Asia) https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/pathogens-an...

Others in this thread have talked about the threats to ash. It's very disheartening, but I guess it's the inevitable price of globalization.

pfdietz3• 11 months ago

Chestnut is being rescued by a two-pronged approach using hybridization (with a resistant asian species, followed by backcrosses to get something that is mostly American Chestnut) and genetic engineering (introducing a wheat gene that destroys oxalate, which the fungus uses to kill tissue.)

plipt2• 11 months ago

I wonder, does Asia and Europe have nearly as many problems with North American invasive plants / pests / diseases as North America does with its non-natives?

Being from the US, I don't recall any such stories in the news.

cedws• 11 months ago

DEA will be delighted about that second one.

chasil• 11 months ago

https://archive.ph/eKd9C

Suppafly• 11 months ago

Seems like there is a disease for pretty much every American tree, before long all we'll have is maples and random non-natives.

A Race to Save a Signature American Tree from a Deadly Disease

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