Subject: BEN # 94

From: [email-masked] (Adolf Ceska)
Date: 4 Mar 1995 07:48:56 -0800

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No. 94                               March 7, 1995

[email-masked]        Victoria, B.C.
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 Dr. A. Ceska, P.O.Box 8546, Victoria, B.C. Canada V8W 3S2
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BIOCONTROL OF SCRUB OAK ON NANTUCKET ISLAND, MASSACHUSETTS
From: Dr. Meindert de Jong <[email-masked]>

Report  on  my  visit  to  the University of Massachusetts Field
Station, Island of Nantucket (November 11-20, 1994).

I visited Dr. Wesley Tiffney, Director of the Field  Station  in
Nantucket  <[email-masked]> During the first days of my visit,
I was guided all over the island. I could  see  the  problem  of
successional  scrub  oak  (Quercus ilicifolia) overgrowing heath
vegetation engendered by a long history of grazing, now ceased.

At the same time I observed several salt marshes and the  native
New  England  plants  growing  on  them.  With  the exception of
Limonium, the plants are different from  those  in  The  Nether-
lands, although the basic ecology is quite similar.

The  original  purpose  of  this visit was the organization of a
biocontrol trial of scrub oak. It was intended to inoculate some
just cut stubs  of  scrub  oak  with  Chondrostereum  purpureum,
silver leaf fungus, to suppress oak resprouting. Fungal prepara-
tions were to be provided by labs in Canada and The Netherlands.

Preliminary  field  results  performed  in  The  Netherlands had
already proved that the silver leaf fungus is an  highly  effec-
tive  controller of resprouting in "American oak" (Q. rubra) and
many other hardwoods. However, it quickly became clear that this
purpose had to be changed since we were not allowed to import  a
foreign  fungus  into  this island. So I decided to provide some
information about possibilities of biological control using 'my'
mycoherbicide (using the fungus C. purpureum  as  if  it  was  a
herbicide). Through a field survey, we would try to show natural
occurrence of this cosmopolitan fungus on Nantucket. sp Together
with  Dr.  Tiffney  and  Nantucket conservation land managers we
looked for the purple crusts (basidiocarps of C. purpureum)  all
across  the  island.  We  finally found these crusts on piles of
firewood, imported from central Massachusetts, in the yard of  a
Nantucket  fuel  merchant.  Dr.  Tiffney  put samples in a moist
chambers in his lab.

This summer, students at the Field Station will seek to document
natural occurrence of C. purpureum on Nantucket  island.  If  it
can be shown that the species is native there, then field trials
of  the  fungus used as a mycoherbicide for control of scrub oak
resprouting can be carried out.

Acknowledgments.
This research was sponsored by Landbouw Export Bureau  (Wagenin-
gen,   NL).   University   of   Massachusetts  provided  lodging
facilities and other in-kind compensation.