{"id":519419,"date":"2010-04-07T11:10:57","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T15:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3265"},"modified":"2010-04-07T11:10:57","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T15:10:57","slug":"douglas-fir-disease-worsens-in-pacific-northwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/519419","title":{"rendered":"Douglas fir disease worsens in Pacific Northwest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oregonlive.com\/news\/index.ssf\/2010\/04\/douglas-fir_disease_spreading.html\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/media.oregonlive.com\/news_impact\/photo\/swissneedlejpg-780f8a3c7ddda680_large.jpg\" width=\"276\" align=\"left\" height=\"206\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/eenews.net\/Greenwire\/2010\/04\/06\/16\/\" >Greenwire<\/a>: A warmer climate and planting on previously logged pieces of land  could be causing more Douglas fir trees in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Ecoregions_of_Oregon_%28EPA%29\">Oregon<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Northwestern_Forested_Mountains_ecoregion_%28CEC%29\">Washington<\/a> to fall  victim to a fungal disease, according to a new study by Oregon State  University researchers.<\/p>\n<p>The disease, Swiss needle cast, which originated in Europe and has  spread throughout the Pacific Northwest since 1996, typically stunts the  trees&#8217; growth, causing them to become discolored and lose their  needles. Now affecting more than 300,000 acres in the region, Swiss  needle cast could eventually become prevalent in up to 2 million acres  of forests along the Oregon coast, researchers said, costing the timber  industry tens of millions of dollars per year.<\/p>\n<p>The study, published in <em>Forest Ecology and Management<\/em>,  suggests commercial forestry practices may be contributing to the spread  of the disease. While coastal forests historically included trees of  various ages and species, Douglas fir forests are often planted  simultaneously, allowing buildup of the fungus among similarly aged  groups of trees, researchers say.<\/p>\n<p>Fungicides have been impractical because of cost and environmental  concerns. A better solution, researchers say, would be to plant fewer  Douglas firs, instead mixing in trees such as the western hemlock and  red alder (Scott Learn, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oregonlive.com\/news\/index.ssf\/2010\/04\/douglas-fir_disease_spreading.html\" >Portland  <em>Oregonian<\/em><\/a>, April 5). <strong>&#8211; GN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3265&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_3265\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Share This<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greenwire: A warmer climate and planting on previously logged pieces of land could be causing more Douglas fir trees in Oregon and Washington to fall victim to a fungal disease, according to a new study by Oregon State University researchers. The disease, Swiss needle cast, which originated in Europe and has spread throughout the Pacific [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}