Sudden Oak Death Discovered In Nassau County, NY

[hatrack]

"The discovery of a red oak tree in New York state infected with the killer disease known as sudden oak death could force changes in a nationwide quarantine of California nurseries as scientists re-evaluate the spread of the mysterious microbe.

The infected tree was found earlier this month inside the Tiffany Creek Preserve, a 192-acre nature park in Nassau County, nowhere near any nurseries that might have received diseased flora from California.

Forestry experts are at a loss to explain how the pathogen got to the preserve or how long it has been there. The fungus-like organism, known scientifically as Phytophthora ramorum, has more than 60 host plants in the United States, but has, until now, never been found in the wild outside of the coastal regions of Northern California and southern Oregon.

"Nobody knows what it means at the moment," said Kerry Britton, forest pathologist for the U.S. Forest Service, in Washington, D.C. "The whole thing seems very weird." An intensive survey of the Nassau County preserve, including DNA samples from every suspicious tree within a 20-acre section of forest, is being conducted to determine if the infestation is more widespread, according to Claude Knighten, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service."

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[NNadir]

1. I grew up on Long Island (Suffolk) County. This scares me.

Long Island forests have long been under assault by introduced parasites, going back to the Chestnut blight, in 1905, (which first appeared in the Bronx zoo and quickly spread to Brooklyn and further out on the Island), the gypsy moth, and now this.

The oak is a very important species in what Long Island forest remains and hasn't been covered by concrete and asphalt, particularly on the North Shore. This is terrible news and hope the infection will be contained.