CARNDUFF, Sask. – There is no cure for Dutch elm disease, but there might be a way to stop it from striking.
Don Summers, with the Canadian Environmental Technology Advancement Corporation, thinks University of Toronto researcher Martin Hubbes may have found an inoculation that might save elms from Dutch elm disease,which is wiping out thousands of trees in farm shelterbelts and communities across Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Elm trees in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba will be part of a test study on what could become a vaccine against Dutch elm disease.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
The elm bark beetle that carries the deadly fungus is no larger than the head of a pin. They burrow in the bark of elm trees, carrying spores in indentations on their abdomen. The fungus spreads quickly, shutting down the tree’s circulation system.
Summers want to drill three holes in each tree and place a tiny capsule of elicitor which will circulate throughout the tree. The holes would be filled with bees wax.
The theory is that the tree will react to the foreign substance.
Ready for fight
“We are priming the tree so that in the event that the fungus does attack the tree, it already is prepared to respond to it, and it will be able to fight off the effects of the fungus,” Summers said.
“It appears that those trees that have been treated with the elicitor and challenged with the fungus survive,” Summers said.
Laboratory tests indicate the inoculation works and now Summers wants to try it on prairie trees.
“Once we prove the effectiveness of it, the idea here is to make it available on a broad basis,” said
Summers.
There are questions that need to be answered, he said.
Annual inoculations?
“We need to know if there is any geographic variation in the effectiveness of the elicitor and what kind of residual effect will occur from one year to the next. Do you have to inoculate the trees every year or can you do it every other year or every third year.”
“We did some inoculations in Saskatoon and other areas last year and we will be going back and sampling those trees and seeing if the material that provides resistance to the tree is there and what the quantities are. So, we need to go through some development stages first.”
Summers hopes testing will be finished in five years.
Bruce Neill, horticulturist with Agriculture Canada’s shelterbelt centre at Indian Head, Sask, said a trial site is going to be set up at Sherwood Forest, near Regina.
“Test sites will also be set up in the cities of Regina, Saskatoon, Yorkton and North Battleford and at the University of Saskatchewan. I want to put it on 60 healthy trees in an area that has the disease. It may take two or three years and there may be repeat applications. We will find out if the trees we treated have better survival rates then the trees that are left untreated,” Neill said.
“It’s not to cure a tree that has DED. It’s to boost its defence system.”
Tests are also being conducted on trees in Winnipeg and in Edmonton, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Calgary and Brooks in Alberta.
