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Chestnut blight
Cryphonectria parasitica
Plant hosts
  • Major hosts: Castanea sp. (chestnuts), Castanea dentata (american chestnut)
  • Wild hosts: Alnus cordata (italian alder), Malus domestica (apple)
  • Hosts where status is unknown: Castanea sativa (chestnut), Eucalyptus (eucalyptus tree), Quercus coccinea (scarlet oak), Quercus ilex (holm oak), Quercus petraea (durmast oak), Quercus rubra (northern red oak), Quercus stellata (post oak)

Click on image to view larger photo.
chbl
 Image provided by Joseph O'Brien, USDA Forest Service, United States.
 
 

Means of movement and dispersal

Plant parts liable to carry the pest in trade and transport
  • Bark: will carry hyphae, and fruiting bodies.
  • Leaves: will carry hyphae which is borne internally and is invisible.
  • Stems: will carry hyphae, and fruiting bodies. Which are born internally and externally. The hyphae is visible to naked eye.
  • True Seeds: will carry hyphae which is borne internally and externally. The hyphae is invisible.

Plant parts not known to carry the pest in trade and transport
  • Bulbs,tubers,corms, rhizomes and fruit.
  • Growing medium accompanying plants.
  • Flowers, inflorescences, cones and calyx.
  • Seedlings and micropropagated plants.

Symptoms
 
 
Slightly sunken or swollen cankers on branches or trunk. Cankers are yellow-brown and oval to irregular in shape. Leaves wilt, turn yellow or brown and remain attached when cankers girdle the tree. Water sprouts may develop below the cankered area. The canker may contain many orange, pimplelike fruiting bodies (pycnidia) that produce yellow to orange masses of spores during wet weather.
 
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Page updated: October 01, 2007

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