Research offers new hope on ash dieback disease

BACK in 1973, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust purchased its first site - Treswell Wood near Retford, a fine example of an Ash-dominated woodland with a recorded history stretching back to the Domesday Book.

- By ERIN MCDAID

The Trust purchased the wood after a fight to prevent it being clear-felled and replanted with Corsican pine.

Over the next four decades the Trust, with the help of local volunteers, the traditional woodland management cycle was restored, supporting a resurgence in traditional woodland skills and crafts.

With ash being the dominant tree in the wood, the arrival of ash dieback disease in the UK in 2012 raised concern as to the future of ash trees in the wood - especially given the headlines as to the scale of the possible impact.

Ash dieback is caused by a fungus called Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. It is also known as 'Chalara' or 'Chalara ash dieback.

The fungus blocks water transport in the tree, leading to lesions in the bark, leaf loss and the dieback of the crown. Once a tree is infected the disease is usually fatal, either directly, or indirectly by weakening the tree to the point where it succumbs more readily to attacks by other pests or pathogens, such as honey fungus.

There is no cure, but some trees are less susceptible to the disease-meaning that natural resistance could be the best hope of a long-term future of the UK's ash trees.