ash tree disease

On the origins of plant immunity from Science journal. Fascinating.

It occurred to me that plants must have some form of defence against pathogens, even if it's not the same as animal immune systems.

I wonder if and when it will get to us in Switzerland. We live in limestone = ash country and it would be devastating. Just counted- we only have 1 big ash tree in our garden + 3 small ones at the side. But our field boundary has about 50 ash, some huge and very old, some smaller + many many sapplings too numerous to count.

I don't think we have so many here in the South. We see more when we go 'oop North'. Wonder why that is.

Oh well according to this I'm wrong there

Must go around with my eyes closed.

They are not high profile trees. But there are lots.

Interesting bags - not quite true to say that innate system in plants and animals is the same (innate system in animals involves a lot of white cells for instance) - but interesting that they share some cellular mechanisms though.

The thing I like best about ash trees is their triangular black buds in winter, and their astonishing black flower buds in spring.

They are the trees you'll see in Weathering Heights - stuck and eeking a living in a scar if limestone pavement - lonely, majestic, wonderful.

Yes. I've definitely seen them when we've been in Yorkshire. Will have to look for them round here.

It's pretty pointless worrying about your boots and shoes as you and your dog will have already traipsed through fallen leaves on the way home. The best thing to do is avoid walking in infected areas altogether.

Ash trees grow like weeds where I live on the Scottish Dalriadan rocks. Aint no limestone around here. Don't ash trees just grow everywhere?

The point I was trying to make is that they look at their most majestic when isolated in limestone pavement...

Perhaps.

Grow like weeds? What point are you trying to make? So do the silver birch in my garden...so what?

Silver birches too. And sycamores, and holly, and goat willow, and wild plum, and bird cherry.

The point I'm trying to make, since you ask, is that it's quite likely that not all ash trees will die of the disease. The few that are left in such a scenario will regenerate. This is how life works. Yes, it's sad when a disease like this takes hold of living things, but it happens all the time. If the diseased organisms find a way to resist the infection, they survive and evolution moves another step. If they don't find any resistance, they go extinct. 99% of all living things that have ever existed on this planet are now extinct – some because of geological events and so on, and many because they didn't manage to resist disease.

The other point I was trying to make is that even if the diseased ash trees had been isolated earlier (and exports from diseased areas stopped, for instance), there's no guarantee that the disease wouldn't have spread anyway. Fungal spores are easily airborne.

Yes Ash is common the length and breadth of the British isles. Oak and Ash are are main broadleaved trees. it is less flashy than other trees but in pretty much any landscape, woodland, park etc a high proportion of trees will be ash. There are apparently several hundred thousand ash trees in Milton Keynes alone. Coming down the M1 yesterday there must have been millions of ash leaves on the hard shoulder. You probably cannot walk a mile in any direction from your house this week without walking over some ash leaves. So if the disease is transmissible by getting on feet and car tyres, it will be transmitted by this route extremely rapidly. But being fungal - well fungal spores blow. Birds fly from tree to tree. Leaves blow. And their seeds are designed to blow on the wind.
I'm afraid this "wash your feet" advice is laughable. There was a COBRA meeting last week and the politicians felt they ought to say something.
We lost our elm trees 40 years ago bags and there is no sign of them recovering. You see the suckers come up and then they get to a certain height and die back. They will only come back if some clever scientist can breed a new variety and it will take 100 years for them to mature. In the States a disease wiped out huge forests of their native chestnut and it is extinct.
Increased mobility of people and their trade is a major source of such outbreaks and the extinctions they cause. So we are accelerating the extinction of species and we are the poorer for it.

Elm used to be quite common too. Now they die back before they can get into proper trees.

I wonder how many ash have been planted along those new 'wildlife corridors' ie new roads.

Good post, jess. Only time will tell whether the ash disease will be as devastating as the elm one was. Meanwhile we can only do our best and I think most people do. We are part of nature too. Sometimes I think we forget that.

I'm just as sad about the ash tree disease as anyone else, but I'm not going to flagellate myself about it, nor anyone else. I accept it has happened and perhaps some part of it may have been exacerbated by human actions, but it's established now. All we can do it try to limit the spread, if possible, and learn from mistakes. It isn't all our 'fault'. Other species affect what happens in nature too. It's the blame and guilt game that I fight against because I think it's unhealthy and achieves nothing except to distort perpspective. I do not accept that human beings are a blight upon the planet.

Millions nfk and many of them.

Human beings per se may not be a blight upon the planet Bags but some individuals are. I've got a little list…

The Whych elm is better able to survive Dutch elm disease than the common elm, though it can still succumb.

Dutch elm disease

I just identified an errant sapling in my garden as an ash. I now plan to move it instead of removing it, in hopes it will survive...

I like your post Bags. If we have a lot of hard frosts and/or a period of lying snow, will that kill off the spores that are attacking the trees?

I don't know, ella. It might slow them down in the way winter usually slows growth down, but I doubt if cold will kill the spores. After all, fungal spores have to survive the winter just like everything else if they are to carry on living and reproducing.

Just been walking down by the river to my son's house. Seen hundreds of trees but no ash trees, only young saplings. Some of them had leaves that were brown and dried up, but I don't know if that was normal for autumn or they are dying.