FWIW, there has been significant damage/death to madrones down here in parts of coastal and near coastal s.w. oregon. manifests itself as black and yellow spots on old foliage then death of new leaves and twigs, then branches and in extreme cases death of the entire plant (sometimes with resproutng from base or lower trunk sometimes not). we have had a series of cool wet springs that MIGHT be especially conductive to fungus diseases. there have been rumors that pathogens from the arbutus unedo and its hybrids (including "marina"---one of which was very hard hit with the disease, one nearby unscathed on my property) might be passing on something to neaby natives. i have speculated about a hyper virilunt form of phythophora perhaps related to the SODS (sudden oak death) pathogen which is known to attack arbutus (but which so far has not been detected this far north. i have not changed cultural (watering) practices on any of the affected trees, not applied herbicides, or changed the grade or drainage of any of these plants on my property so i think i can reasonably exclude those potential causes so i am left with the suspect list above (plus all sorts of possible causes i am just unaware or ignorant of). would hate to be at the initial stages of somethig equivilant to the chestnut blite or port orford cedar root rot that ends up essentially wiping out a significant part of the local flora??????
Statistics: Posted by georgeinbandonoregon — Sat Aug 11, 2012 8:20 am