ash tree disease

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.

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.

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

Perhaps.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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 not high profile trees. But there are lots.

Oh well according to this I'm wrong there

Must go around with my eyes closed.

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

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.

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.

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

Did you know that they have NOT banned import of Ash trees full stop. They have only banned import of Ash trees from areas that have (admitted to) having the disease.
So, if they want to import ash trees all they have to do is get them from an area that has not been officially declared as having the disease. Easy peazy!

Oops. Forgot!

That's what the man said!

How do I know?!

Most of the country is currently covered in fallen ash leaves. Will boot washing really make a difference?

Said on Farming Today the radio this morning that if you walk in a woodland you should wait 24 hours before you go to another one, and make sure your boots are scrubbed off and dry.

www.monbiot.com/2012/10/29/what-were-you-thinking/

George Monbiot's letter to Caroline Spelman (sec of state ffor the environment 2010 to 2012) about nothing having been done about Ash tree importation.

Quite gracesmum - I am not sure if it can be spread by birds. But they do fly in in large numbers from N Europe. And land in trees. But that is outside DEFRA's control.
Trees don't have immune systems like we do. You cannot develop a vaccine for a tree.

Meant to add -it's DEFRA who need culling, not badgers.

Gracesmum brilliant!