After three years of drought, the forecast for a wet El Nino winter this year is welcome news indeed. Unless you’re an oak or tanoak tree. Researchers fear a wet year could mean an epidemic spread of sudden oak death (SOD). But a new preventive treatment and easy precautions could help contain the disease.
Tag: sudden oak death
Spring Issue 2009
Sudden Oak Death Blitz
The deadly plant disease known as sudden oak death (SOD) has spread to 14 coastal counties, and according to UC Berkeley’s Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab, the continuing epidemic threatens the survival of tanoaks, an ecologically important native tree, as … Read more
Winter Issue 2007
The Rock in the Redwoods
Take a hike to a scene of otherworldly geology, hidden away in this Peninsula preserve’s forests of tanoak, Douglas-fir, and second-growth redwood.
Archive, Botany
Resources for Learning About Sudden Oak Death
WEBSITES California Oak Mortality Task Force http://www.suddenoakdeath.org or http://nature.berkeley.edu/comtf This is the most comprehensive source of information for the general public about sudden oak death and the pathogen that causes it. Useful pages on the site include: History and Background … Read more
Botany, Gardening
What Gardeners Should Know About Sudden Oak Death
Suggestions for how gardeners can help prevent the spread of the pathogen that causes Sudden Oak Death.
Fall Issue 2006
Recalling the Wild
Walk a few miles in Jack London’s boots to see the landscape he declared more beautiful than any he’d seen in all his travels.
Fall Issue 2006
Sleuthing Sudden Oak Death
By the time that sudden oak death (SOD) began hitting North Bay oaks and tanoaks in the mid-1990s, Ted Swiecki and Elizabeth Bernhardt, husband-and-wife plant pathologists, had been studying oak diseases in California oak woodlands for many years in the … Read more
Fall Issue 2006
Watch Your Step
Since 2000, sudden oak death has spread through 14 California counties, including all nine in the Bay Area, threatening our signature oak woodlands. Though rain, wind, and fog have caused much of that spread, some of the blame likely lies with those of us who venture into the woods for business or pleasure: The disease can move on infected plants and firewood, and on the muddy shoes and bicycle tires of recreational trail users.
Summer Issue 2004
Disappearance of Native Oaks in the Bay Area
Although solidly rooted in California’s natural and cultural history, our native oaks are disappearing at an alarming rate. The loss of these magnificent trees to urbanization and Sudden Oak Death has been widely publicized, but there is another threat that … Read more
Botany
Confronting Sudden Oak Death
Although the disease is popularly known as Sudden Oak Death, the funguslike organism that causes it, Phytophthora ramorum, is also responsible for less severe symptoms in a number of other native and nonnative plants. The continually growing list of affected … Read more
