Fourth spreading fungus for endangered butter trees attacking 3 regions of Pei
Islanders are being urged to take care to prevent the spread of a tree fungus, which has now been found in three areas of PEI.
Butternut canker is a rapidly growing disease that attacks butternaut trees. While trees are not considered native to the island, they are widely planted throughout the province.
“This is actually a death sentence, unfortunately, once a butter cannker is obtained for the tree,” said a technician Clot Cutting of the PEI Invasive Species Council.
Once the tree becomes infected, there is no known way to prevent the spread of fungi – after all, the host tree dies when many canker work in combination to reduce the tree.
Cutting said the council is well aware of how the fungi may have destroyed the butter tree population because the disease has affected other provinces.
According to a news release by the PEI Invasive Species Council, more than 80 percent of butter in Ontario has been killed by butternut cankar till date, with more than 99 percent of the overall infection rate.
Symptoms and symptoms
Fungus was first seen in trees in Robert Cotton Park in Stratford in 2024. Since then, the aggressive species council surveys on butternaut trees in Charlottown and Stratford and found that the majority “according to the news release, demonstrated signs of butternut canker infection.”
Scientists with Canadian forest service confirmed the identification of the disease in July.
“The most obvious signs and the symptoms of butter canker. They are large, sunken canker appeared on tights in branches. They are mostly long, and canker leaves a black matter,” said the cutting.
He said that the presence of fungi may vary on the basis of how long the tree is infected, and the time of the year.
The color of the infected area can range from black to dark brown. In new cases, the symptoms are not so pronounced and may look like a patch taken with small cracks in the bark that remove a black matter.
How does it spread?
Butternut cancar spreads that only confirmed, through rain, cutting said.
“The rain water will hit an infected tree, maybe the fungal spores are spread around the canopy, around the canopy.”
He is not deciding in other ways such as burning wooden handling, or insects and birds are exposed to fungi.
There are no known control methods for the affected population, and the endangered conditions of butternaut trees can limit their removal based on PEI’s Wildlife Protection Act rules.
The aggressive species council stated that the islands may take steps to take care of some trees that show high level tolerance to the disease.
This can be performed by removing nasks to help reduce the amount of fungi in the area by excluding infected branches and potentially expanding the lifetime of the tree.
