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GLENVILLE
First diagnosed cases of oak wilt disease seen in local trees
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

    Four years ago, Frank Strauss was relaxing by his backyard pool early during the summer when he noticed the leaves on his towering oak tree starting to change color.
    Within six weeks, nearly all of the leaves of the more than 3-foot-thick oak had browned. By the following summer, the tree was bare and another oak nearby began fading.
    Pretty soon, that oak was also dead and another was beginning to brown. Strauss relayed the strange occurrence to a neighbor, who told him that it wasn’t anything unique to his property.
    “We got talking and said ‘You know, we’ve got fall in the middle of summer,’ ” he recalled Friday.
    But the affected trees in the Glen Oaks neighborhood had a major problem. They’re thought to be New York’s first diagnosed cases of oak wilt, an aggressive fungal disease that can kill hardwoods.
    The sudden appearance of oak wilt worries officials from the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schenectady County and the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. Chris Logue, Cooperative Extension’s interim executive director, said if it’s left unchecked, the disease could hurt both homeowners and the timber industry.
    “We have to get the word out there,” he said. “We want to know if its just a couple of blocks [in Glen Oaks] or if it’s out there in other places.”
    Cooperative Extension is also spreading word of the discovery to nurseries and other businesses.
    “It’s not something we’ve seen in New York, so most of them are not familiar with it,” said Chuck Schmitt, an educator with Albany County’s Cooperative Extension.
    First identified in 1944, the fun- gus is most prevalent in central and midwestern states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Pennsylvania was the closest state reporting cases of oak wilt prior to its identification on the Strauss property.
    The fungus grows in an oak’s water-conducting tissues, causing gummy plugs that stop nutrients, and kills the tree in as little as three weeks. All oak species in New York are susceptible, with those belonging to the red oak group being least resistant.
    Long distance spread of oak wilt most often occurs through the nitidulid beetle, a sap-feeding insect attracted by the almost fruity smell of the fungus. When an oak branch is broken — from pruning or storm damage — the fungus-carrying beetles are naturally attracted to the tree’s sap.
    Among oaks in close confines, the fungus can be spread through grafted root systems, even after the disease has killed its initial host. Logue said the fungus can remain active for up to four years in dead oaks.
    The disease can also remain in firewood for up to a year, meaning the beetles can continue to feed on the fungus and spread it to other trees. He said an infected oak that is cut down should be quarantined in black plastic until it can be burned.
    Logue said the only way to thwart the disease is by taking preventive measures. In areas where the disease is identified, healthy trees can be given an anti-fungal injection once every two or three years; another method is to separate any root connections between trees.
    Strauss said preventing the disease is expensive — about $250 per injection — but not as costly as taking down a mature oak. Over the course of four years, he’s spent more than $5,000 removing dead trees.
    Not to mention, there’s an aesthetic cost that can’t be recouped. Strauss said oak wilt has dramatically changed the shaded yard he once enjoyed.
    “It’s not the backyard I bought 34 years ago,” he said.


Chris Logue, an educator from Cornell Cooperative Extension, uses a knife to point out a dark ring on a branch from a tree infected with oak wilt on Doris Drive in Glenville Friday afternoon. The ring restricts the flow of nutrients and water throughout the tree, causing the tree to die.
BARRY SLOAN/ GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER