Discover magazine mentioned in passing that a group of people have developed a Dutch Elm disease resistant strain and have a campaign to plant at least a million. I have room to give one or two a try.
Of course, being Discover, they did not mention who this group of people are or how to contact them :rolleyes:
A quick web search didn’t reveal anything.
Has anyone heard of them?
That would be Penn State University.
You can get some detail here:
When I last checked, the trees that they were planting were somewhat resistant, but still expected to die of Dutch Elm disease eventually. But good luck.
Thanks Nardo!
Hmmm, if they will still die then I shouldn’t do it. I was thinking that some would die but most would live and that they were trying to repopulate.
When I moved into my house in 1972, the street was lined with stately old elms. Over a period of a few years in the 70s, all but one of them died. Since the disease (it is a fungus, isn’t it?) is supposedly highly contagious and this tree is very healthy 25 years later, one must suppose that it is quite resistant. Our I pull out dozens of baby elms (along with maples) every summer and they pretty much have to come from this tree, since there is no other elm nearby. I once tried to email this information to some plant biologist, but never got a reply, so I assumed that immune trees were not that rare. Is there is anyone I could or should tell about this?
Are there any other trees that could replace the elms?
hari seldon, you should def. contact someone about the tree. there are many american elm associations. perhaps there is one in your neck of the woods. just a quick check on yahoo showed quite a few. or perhaps the forest service nearest you.
i read an article quite a while ago on a man who worked for the us forest service. he would travel around the country looking for trees like yours. he devoted his life to finding a solution to the elm and chestnut plagues in this country.
it would be fantastic if the elm and chestnut could be replanted.
JFC!!!
Will there be any trees left???
Sure, plenty of trees out there, just not many stately Elms and Chestnuts.
What about the Liberty Elm project? I know they planted some of them at my college when the old elms lining the Green had died. Ah, here’s a link: http://www.libertyelm.com/
What exactly are the Liberty Elms? They say several times on the site that they’re not hybrids, but 6 genetically different cultivars. What does this mean?
