September will see a significant quantity of timber coming to the market from Japanese larch trees felled by Forestry Commission Wales due to the outbreak of ramorum disease.
The timber will be sold via Forestry Commission Wales’s online E-sales system on Wednesday 7 September and in further sales in November 2011 and January 2012.
Ramorum disease is caused by the pathogen Phytophthora ramorum (P. ramorum). The only known way to prevent its spread is to fell infected trees in order to kill the living plant material on which the pathogen depends.
Although ramorum disease is fatal to Japanese larch trees, it does not harm the timber and biosecurity measures have been put in place to allow logs from infected trees to be taken to sawmills without spreading the pathogen to other trees or plants.
Craig Sinclair, Production Manager from Forestry Commission Wales’s Harvesting and Marketing team, said, “Speed is of the essence when felling infected Japanese larch trees as, in the autumn, they produce huge quantities of the spores that spread ramorum disease.
“In order to manage this outbreak, we are felling many more Japanese larch trees in South Wales than normal.
“However, we have adjusted the overall volume of these trees harvested in Wales so that we can meet our annual production target of 770,000 cubic metres of timber, which is set at a level we can sustain in the longer term.”
Last year, 876 hectares of Japanese larch trees were found to be infected by ramorum disease in Wales for the first time.
Initial findings from this year’s surveys of woodlands by Forestry Commission Wales indicate that this fatal tree disease has infected a further 227 hectares of larch trees in Wales. Most of the newly diagnosed trees are in woodlands adjacent to the areas found to be infected with ramorum disease last year in the Afan Valley, near Port Talbot.
“The worst case scenario would have been to have found the same number, or even more, trees infected by ramorum disease this year as last year, but, so fortunately, this does not seem to be the case, ” said Craig.
“Whilst it is worrying that we have to fell a large number of infected trees again this year, it would seem that our decision to swiftly fell infected trees last year has played a key role so far in managing this major outbreak.
“We are determined to minimise the impact of ramorum disease on woodlands and the forest industry and we are grateful for the co-operation and flexibility the industry has shown.”
Further information about Phytophthora ramorum is on the Forestry Commission’s website at www.forestry.gov.uk/pramorum.
