Pacific Southwest Research Station

Pacific Southwest Research Station
800 Buchanan Street
West Annex Building
Albany, CA 94710-0011

(510) 559-6300

Research Topics: Insects and Disease

Sudden Oak Death/Phytophthora ramorum

In 2010, the USDA Forest Service is awarding approximately $1.5 million for Sudden Oak Death/Phytophthora ramorum research. Projects are being carried out at 20 research institutions across the US, and in the United Kingdom and Germany. The information is being used to guide development of regulatory policies, monitoring programs, and management and treatment strategies, to minimize spread and impact of this quarantine pathogen.

Insect and Disease Response to Climate Change

Forest plant diseases are heavily influenced by weather and climate. For forest pathogenic fungi, bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms, the temperature and moisture conditions interacting with the host determine infection severity and disease distribution. Extreme weather, i.e. drought or typhoons, can kill large expanses of trees directly by overwhelming tree physiological and structural strength. Patterns and rates of wood decay, caused by forest fungi, are also expected to change in response to climate changes which will influence forest carbon cycles. Expected changes in climate coupled with the increasing stresses of invasive species, lack of fire, and forest fragmentation are creating conducive conditions for many forest plant diseases.

• Kliejunas, John T.; Geils, Brian W.; Glaeser, Jessie Micales; Goheen, Ellen Michaels; Hennon, Paul; Kim, Mee-Sook; Kope, Harry; Stone, Jeff; Sturrock, Rona; Frankel, Susan J. 2009. Review of literature on climate change and forest diseases of western North America. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-225. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. 54 p.
• Searchable annotated bibliography of Climate and Forest Diseases of Western North America

Forest Disease (Contact: Susan Frankel, sfrankel@fs.fed.us) Sudden Oak Death

Pitch Canker

The pitch canker fugus, Fusarium circinatum (= F. subglutinans f sp. pini), causes several serious diseases of pines. The pathogen infects a variety of vegetative and reproductive pine structures at diierent stages of maturity and produces a diversity of symptoms. In addition to producing resinous cankers on the woody vegetative structures of its pine host, the causal fungus causes the mortality of female flowers and mature cones, deteriorates seeds of several pine species, and can cause mortality of seedlings in nurseries. Since 1986, pitch canker has been epidemic in California on Pinus radiata (Monterey pine) and has all the earmarks of an introduced disease.

White Pine Blister Rust in Western North America

A disease native to Asia, white pine blister rust was introduced separately into both eastern and western North America early in the 20th century. In both cases, the vector was seedlings of native eastern white pine imported from European nurseries, where they had become infected. Blister rust had first appeared in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, and within three decades had spread across the continent wherever the popular eastern white pine had been planted.