52 cases of ash dieback disease

4 November 2012 Last updated at 22:36 ET

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says there have now been 52 confirmed cases of ash dieback disease.

The BBC's correspondent Andrew Plant says experts say it may be too late to stop the spread of the fungus.

Hundreds of staff from environmental organisations have been out surveying wild trees this weekend.

The Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, has urged people to wash their boots after visiting woods.

In the last six weeks 100,000 ash trees have been destroyed in the UK.

Our correspondent says ash dieback disease has now been found in 38 nurseries, plantations and other locations in England and Scotland, including a car park in Leicester; a forest near Glasgow and a college campus in South Yorkshire.

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Symptoms of chalara dieback

• Diseased saplings typically display dead tops and side shoots.
• Lesions often found at base of dead side shoots.
• Lesions on branch or stem can cause wilting of foliage above.
• Disease affects mature trees by killing off new growth.

Last week, it was discovered in wild ash trees on 14 sites across East Anglia.

Scientists say the infection in native trees has been caused by spores of a fungus - carried on the wind from mainland Europe.

Once infected by the chalara fraxinea fungus, a tree cannot be cured.

Imports banned

All imports of ash have been banned and walkers are being asked to take precautions - but many feel the restrictions have come too late.

Thousands of ash trees across Britain were inspected over the weekend, and experts say they expect the full results of the survey by Wednesday.

Defra say the fungus has been found at 52 locations:

• 18 nurseries that had imported infected plants.
• 20 plantations which had received young trees.
• 14 wild ash trees, infected by fungus spores carried on the wind.

Next week Defra hope to have a new SmartCycler gadget to test for the disease.

The new piece of technology will give a result in about an hour compared with the days it takes currently takes to send samples back to a laboratory.

Around 90% of ash trees in Denmark are believed to have become infected.

Ministers are concerned the fungus could be present on fallen leaves and could be spread by the boots of walkers or by pet dogs.

On Friday, Mr Paterson told the BBC: "Everyone should be responsible and if they do visit a wood just make sure they wash their boots, wash their dog, whatever's been running around the leaves, wash their child, to make sure they don't transfer to the next wood."

The disease was first spotted in the UK on 7 March and Labour has accused the government of being to slow to act and queried whether cuts to the Forestry Commission's budget had affected the response.

But environment minister David Heath denied there had been any cutback in resources "applied to plant health and tree health in this country".

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20201708#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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