Ash dieback fungus disease: Experts issue public advice to protect trees

Environment officials have issued fresh advice to the public in spotting the killer disease which is threatening huge swathes of Britain's ash trees.

Confirmed cases of ash dieback have spread nationwide since the fungus arrived in the UK in a consignment of infected trees from the Netherlands in February.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirmed ash dieback in ash trees at 52 locations, while timber firms have been forced to fell tens of thousands of trees each as the fungus spreads.

The government last week banned ash tree imports and has destroyed 100,000 trees due to the spread of the fungus, also known as Chalara fraxinea.

Senior scientists advising the government have warned that the fungus would destroy 'almost all' of Britain's third most common tree.

This week, as unconfirmed cases of ash dieback were spotted as far north as Edinburgh and as far south as Bournemouth, fresh guidance has been issued to help the public deal with the disease.

The Forestry Commission have provided a list of tips to help prevent the spread of ash dieback, though they acknowledge the risk of humans spreading the fungus is quite small.

Experts say that anyone visiting an infected or suspected woodland should take the following precautions:

• Do not remove any plant material (firewood, sticks, leaves or cuttings) from the woodland.
  
  

• Where possible, before leaving the woodland, clean soil mud and leaves from footwear, bicycle wheels and tyres.
  
  

• Before visiting other countrside sites, garden centres and nurseries thoroughly wash footwear, bicycle wheel and tyres.
  
  

The Forestry Commission have also posted a video on their website showing the symptoms of trees infected with ash dieback.

If members of the public spot trees with these symptoms, they have been urged to contact the Forestry Commission or the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera).

Steve Scott, Area Director for the Forestry Commission, says people need to look out for 'brown or black leaves, hung on the tree like it has been hit by a frost'.

In the early stages, leaves begin to wilt, before turning brown as the lead stem also becomes discoloured.

People should also look out for discoloured stems which begin olive green, but turn purple and brown further up in infected areas.

Diamond-shaped lesions are also a key symptom on stems of infected trees, as this shows where the fungus has got into the main trunk.

Ash dieback, or chalara, causes leaf loss and crown dieback - the dying of branches and branch tips - and can lead to the death of the tree.

It has already been confirmed at 52 sites in Britain.

The new and especially virulent strain was first detected in Poland in 1992 and has more recently killed up to 90 percent of ash trees in parks of Denmark, leading to plant experts' early warnings that it could also affect Britain.

They have compared its potential impact to that of Dutch elm disease, which killed most of Britain's mature elms in the 1970s and 1980s.

The ash dieback fungus was first detected in Britain in March, with East Anglia the area worst affected.