Ash Virus - Is Rowan (Mountain Ash) affected?

Morning all.

Just today I realised something that worries me.

We all know about this awful outbreak of ash virus, really threatening some of our trees.

On my land, I have a fair few Rowan trees, including a couple of very impressive very mature ones.

Rowan is also known as 'Mountain Ash', and a quick google says its part of the Sorbus genus in the rosaceae family.

I can't find anything that's clear to me whether this is the same as the 'at risk' ash trees.

What do we know on the subject?

 

The forestry commission links to this page which mentions that so far the fungal disease has only been identified in two species of ash Fraxinus excelsior and Fraxinus agustifolia

http://www.eppo.int/QUARANTINE/Alert_List/fungi/Chalara_fraxinea.htm

If you mean specifically mountain Ash then this will not effect your trees due to as you mention that they are separate genus.

Yet again the British countryside is due for a significant change in appearance and one which shall deeply sadden me, I'm not old enough to remember mature English Elms but I hope one day I will not have to explain what mature Ash trees looked like to my future children :( I suppose the only saving grace is most Ash trees unlike elms were seed grown and so will have a wide and diverse gene pool with hopefully some resistance to the coming plague.

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Cheers Aesculus. That's a relief. My trees are definitely Rowan. I struggled to find anything that was clear to me what the latin name for plain Ash was.

 

Good post Clueless and Aesculus , I never thought of the mountain ash . This is such a pretty tree in late summer , fortunately not in danger.

 

Hi

so Elms were cuttings ? and not grown from seed ?

Spruce

 

Yes most were shown to be genetically identical in later testing and it was speculated that they must have been cuttings or root suckers which were planted by people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulmus_procera

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Many of us will be familiar with the Ash tree's ability to readily propagate itself from seed, so it is to be hoped that some resistant strains will emerge in due course.
However, this may take some time. According to an article in one of the broadsheets today, the number of resistant trees emerging in Denmark has been very small.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/co...ows-what-is-in-store-for-British-forests.html

 

I wonder if the fungus attacks Fraxinus pennsylvanica and F. angustifolia too. We have both of those as well as the F. excelsior and F.e. jaspidea.

 

Can anyone explain as to why we were importing Ash trees from the continent in the first place?
OK I know its possible the fungus might have reached us via other means but why imports.
Unless its the garden varieties similar to which Palustris mentions above, and similar, I can see no reason.

 

Probably because they can be produced more cheaply in other countries.
How, you may ask, can a native tree which readily seeds itself almost anywhere, without any help from man, be cheaper to import than to propagate right here at home?
This is the strange world of 'globalisation' in which we now live.
Don't ask me to explain it, I'm only a humble gardener.

Also, I offer you this little nugget from an article in today's Sunday Telegraph;

So there you have it. 'Trade' must come first, and to hell with the consequences.

 

Problem I see now is what do the government do about it? I personally would like to see a blanket ban on all native plant imports but then how do you stop wise guys selecting a form and registering it as a cultivar?

And that government rubbish about that they couldn't ban imports is absolute tripe it didn't stop the French and many other countries banning British beef imports during the bse outbreak and what measures were taken against them?

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I also read somewhere that there was a call for a ban as far back as at least 2010.

But how can a small island only 20 miles from the mainland expect, in this day and age, to be able to keep out such diseases.
There is so much travel now it would have been bound to have crept in one way or another.
But importing it, almost intentionally, must be the limit.

 

Do the terms stable doors and bolts , ring a faint bell

 

'Orse springs to mind too.

I'd wondered why there were Elm seeds but no Elm seedlings, if it was all the same girly tree it couldn't mate with its self

Think its too late already for the Ash. Since the reports i've been looking out for them along the roads, there are loads of them

 

That seems to be a favoured environment for them doesn't it Ziggy? it's one of my favorite autumnal views


Glorious Colurs of Mother nature by Andreas-photography, on Flickr