Very disturbing news given that the disease can attack rhododendrons, Douglas firs, and western larches.
A Disease That’s Felled Forests in California and Oregon Shows up in Washington http://www.opb.org/news/article/a-disease-thats-felled-forests-in-california-and-oregon-shows-up-in-washington/
It’s a sunny spring morning at the Bloedel Reserve, a public garden on Puget Sound’s Bainbridge Island. Roads lead to paths lined with blossoming bushes and trees. Darren Strenge, the reserve’s plant health manager, is showing me the rhododendron glen. That’s where a gardener first spotted a problem back in 2015: a plant that wasn’t healthy…. Strenge took a sample and sent it into a lab. The answer came back: the plant had the pathogen that causes sudden oak death. The disease has decimated forests in California and infected forests in southwestern Oregon. And now it’s made a return to Western Washington, where rhododendrons, Douglas firs, and western larches are most susceptible. It has the potential for such disastrous effects that agencies, scientists, and citizens are working together to try to keep it under control. Eilís O’Neill reports. (KUOW/EarthFix)
Filed under: Climate Change, Puget Sound | Tagged: Puget Sound, sudden oak | Comments Off on Sudden Oak Disease Arrives in Washington State – KUOW
