An Experiment in Denmark to Infect Wounded Sitka Spruce with the Rotstop Isolate of Phlebiopsis gigantea, and Its Implications for the Control of Heterobasidion annosum in Britain
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An Experiment in Denmark to Infect Wounded Sitka Spruce with the Rotstop Isolate of Phlebiopsis gigantea, and Its Implications for the Control of Heterobasidion annosum in Britain. / Pratt, Jim; Thomsen, Iben M.
In: Pathogens, Vol. 11, No. 8, 937, 2022.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - An Experiment in Denmark to Infect Wounded Sitka Spruce with the Rotstop Isolate of Phlebiopsis gigantea, and Its Implications for the Control of Heterobasidion annosum in Britain
AU - Pratt, Jim
AU - Thomsen, Iben M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - The formulation of a Finnish isolate of the saprotrophic wood-rotting fungus Phlebiopsis gigantea into the biocontrol agent (BCA) Rotstop, which is used to prevent infection of Norway spruce stumps by aerial basidiospores of H. annosum, has led to its application to more than 200,000 ha of forest in Scandinavia and North Europe. The success of this treatment opens the possibility of introducing the Rotstop strain into Britain for use on Sitka spruce stumps, which at present (2022) are lacking adequate prophylactic treatment. However, Rotstop is probably non-native to Britain and to North America (the ancestral home of this spruce), and we do not know if this xylem-decaying BCA can invade standing trees. In this paper, we describe a trial into this issue conducted for the U.K. Forestry Commission in Denmark, in a country where both Rotstop and Sitka spruce have been naturalised. It was preliminary to further stump treatment trials, and is relevant to long-term issues surrounding stump treatment in Britain. Inoculations into 44-year-old standing Sitka spruce with 20 mm wooden Scots pine plugs pre-colonised with Rotstop resulted in decay of the S1, S2, S3 and middle lamellae of sapwood above and below the wounds after 11–18 months. In contrast, infection of sapwood occurred in only one of 39 wounds on the same trees challenged with oidial spore inoculants adpressed to undamaged xylem sapwood during the same period. While the results suggest that release of Rotstop into the productive stands of Sitka spruce in Britain would be unlikely to cause long-term commercial losses to wounded trees, the work highlights issues relating to the assessment of risk associated with the introduction of non-native BCAs within the forest environment.
AB - The formulation of a Finnish isolate of the saprotrophic wood-rotting fungus Phlebiopsis gigantea into the biocontrol agent (BCA) Rotstop, which is used to prevent infection of Norway spruce stumps by aerial basidiospores of H. annosum, has led to its application to more than 200,000 ha of forest in Scandinavia and North Europe. The success of this treatment opens the possibility of introducing the Rotstop strain into Britain for use on Sitka spruce stumps, which at present (2022) are lacking adequate prophylactic treatment. However, Rotstop is probably non-native to Britain and to North America (the ancestral home of this spruce), and we do not know if this xylem-decaying BCA can invade standing trees. In this paper, we describe a trial into this issue conducted for the U.K. Forestry Commission in Denmark, in a country where both Rotstop and Sitka spruce have been naturalised. It was preliminary to further stump treatment trials, and is relevant to long-term issues surrounding stump treatment in Britain. Inoculations into 44-year-old standing Sitka spruce with 20 mm wooden Scots pine plugs pre-colonised with Rotstop resulted in decay of the S1, S2, S3 and middle lamellae of sapwood above and below the wounds after 11–18 months. In contrast, infection of sapwood occurred in only one of 39 wounds on the same trees challenged with oidial spore inoculants adpressed to undamaged xylem sapwood during the same period. While the results suggest that release of Rotstop into the productive stands of Sitka spruce in Britain would be unlikely to cause long-term commercial losses to wounded trees, the work highlights issues relating to the assessment of risk associated with the introduction of non-native BCAs within the forest environment.
KW - biocontrol
KW - Britain
KW - field testing
KW - Heterobasidion annosum
KW - Phlebiopsis gigantea
KW - quarantine
KW - rotstop
KW - Sitka spruce
KW - stem damage
U2 - 10.3390/pathogens11080937
DO - 10.3390/pathogens11080937
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 36015057
AN - SCOPUS:85137390614
VL - 11
JO - Pathogens
JF - Pathogens
SN - 2076-0817
IS - 8
M1 - 937
ER -
ID: 319787885