Having grown despondent about the devastating toll beech leaf disease will likely take on Princeton's beech trees, I was surprised and somewhat heartened by what I found on the Princeton University campus.
A friend from childhood was visiting me for the first time, and as I showed him and his wife around campus, I began to feel as if we had somehow been transported back to an era before introduced pathogens and insects had marginalized many of our native trees.Unlike the ailing beech trees up along the Princeton ridge, the beeches on campus appeared unfazed by beech leaf disease.
I looked for signs that these trees had been injected with chemicals to ward off invasion, but found none. Surely, though, this improbable survival depends heavily on medicinal intervention.
Since I first alerting the community to the presence of beech leaf disease in Princeton in a blog post and letter to the editor, some articles have been written in the local press--one in TapInto Princeton and one in Town Topics.
Both mention phosphites as the primary treatment available thus far. Applied to the soil, phosphites are a biostimulant that improves the tree's immune system response. I was skeptical that this could make much of a difference, but the University appears to be having good results. Grounds supervisor EJ May said they started seeing signs of beech leaf disease two years ago. Speaking generally about efforts to save native trees, he acknowledged some losses but some success as well.
There remains, too, an uncertainty as to the origin of the nematode that causes beech leaf disease. It is most similar to a species found in Japan, but differs in some ways.