Wood Decay Fungi Management of Terminal Urban Pathogens

Summary: Wood decay fungi management prevents pathogenic rots, prepares infected trees for immediate or postponed termination and protects beneficial mycorrhizae.

Edible chicken-of-the-wood (Laetiporus sulphureus) causes brown heart rot in hardwood hosts; Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex (OCNWRC): Peter Pearsall/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-Pacific Region, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

The article Wood Decay Fungi Identification and Management in Arborist News June 2018 acknowledges similar forest and urban woody decay fungi management roles in decomposing matter, recycling nutrients and supporting new growth.

Co-authors Chelsi Abbott, A.D. Ali and Christine Balk, Davey Institute Technical Advisors, broach unaesthetic, weakened structural integrity of hazardous, mechanically damaged young and slow-growing old trees. Abiotic (environmental or non-living) stressors change saprophytes of dead plant matter, but not mycorrhizal mushrooms at tree bases and roots, into pathogens of living plant tissue. Health and species decide how the most aggressive wood decay fungal species defeat coniferous, hardwood and palm host species' defenses, dominate plant tissue and destabilize trees.

Brittle cellulose-degraded wood, cellulose-degraded tissue cavities and lignin-degraded spongy wood respectively ensue from brown, soft and white rots, the three different types of wood decay fungi.

Basal and root rots of tree bases and roots flourish elsewhere, especially on lower tree trunks, and respectively furnish crown dieback and chlorotic (nutrient-deficient, yellow-leafed) symptoms.

Fungal conks, as bract and shelf mushroom generators of spores and as pathogenic urban wood decay fungal signs, get identifiable colors, odors, persistence, shapes and timing. Ganoderma applanatum, aggressive basal rot of beeches, conifers and oaks and brown- or tan-topped, cream-bottomed woody conk, has the nickname artist's conk for drawing-friendly spore surfaces. Ganoderma sessile, cream-bottomed, mahogany-, red-topped varnish conk and semi-aggressive root rot, occasionally includes tree-attaching tails, preferentially inhabits honeylocusts and oaks and sometimes invades bases and trunks.

Ganoderma zonatum, aggressive annual conk with respectively immature white mass-like and mature shelf-like, shiny red-topped shapes on bases and trunks, jeopardizes all palm tree host species.

Armillaria mellea keeps black, stringlike rhizomorphs and sometimes thread-like vegetative white mycelial fans under the tree bark of conifers and such hardwood host species as oaks.

Arborists, master gardeners, master naturalists and tree stewards label the clustered, honey-colored soft mushrooms of late summer to early autumn honey mushrooms and shoestring root rot. Inonotus dryadeus, aggressive basal and root rot of oak hosts, maintains immature amorphous, cream-colored and mature brown-black, shriveled shapes and the moniker amber-colored, liquid-seeping weeping conks. Kretzschmaria deusta, or Ustulina deusta, numbers among the more difficult aggressive basal and root rots to notice on such hardwood host species as beeches and oaks.

Pathogenic urban wood decay fungi management occurs on black, crusty clumps of older Ustulina deusta and on white-bordered dusty gray surface coatings of younger Kretzschmaria deusta.

Spongy textures like raw chicken provide Laetiporus sulphureus, edible, large, orange-, pink-, yellow-layered shelf-like heart rot of hardwood hosts such as oaks, with the nickname chicken-of-the-wood.

Wood decay fungi management queues up proper cultural practices, such as drip line-only, 2- to 4-inch (5.08- to 10.16-centimeter) mulch, and non-injurious mowing, pruning and weeding. Wood decay fungi management requires preventative practices and palliative treatments of abiotic stressors and bark-residing fungal hyphae since removing fungal conks never represses or reverses decay. Wood decay fungi management sequences preventative practices and palliative searches for abiotic stressors, fungal species, host health and pathogen progression with RESISTOGRAPHs, sounding hammers and tomography.

Wood decay fungi management thwarts non-curable urban pathogens, such as brown, soft and wood rots, and terminates immediately, or treats temporarily, terminally ill host tree species.

A A RESISTOGRAPH® is an advanced, electronic method of wood decay tree risk assessment; forest pathologist Betsy Goodrich uses a Resistograph to measure the amount of sound rind in an old growth Douglas-fir; Ohanapecosh Campground, Mt. Rainier National Park, west central Washington; Monday, June 8, 2015, 11:48:14: R6, State & Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection (USDA Forest Service), Public Domain, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to:
talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet;
University of Urbana-Champaign for superior on-campus and on-line resources.

Image credits:

Edible chicken-of-the-wood (Laetiporus sulphureus) causes brown heart rot in hardwood hosts; Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex (OCNWRC): Peter Pearsall/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-Pacific Region, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laetiporus_sulphureus_(23766178771).jpg;
USFWS -- Pacific Region (USFWS Pacific), CC BY NC 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/23766178771/

A RESISTOGRAPH® is an advanced, electronic method of wood decay tree risk assessment; forest pathologist Betsy Goodrich uses a Resistograph to measure the amount of sound rind in an old growth Douglas-fir; Ohanapecosh Campground, Mt. Rainier National Park, west central Washington; Monday, June 8, 2015, 11:48:14: R6, State & Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection (USDA Forest Service), Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/151887236@N05/38201968944

For further information:

Abbott, Chelsi; Christine Balk; A.D. Ali. June 2018. "Wood Decay Fungi Identification and Management." Arborist News, vol. 27, no. 3: 12-15.

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