A small step for elms

Press, 9 October 1979, Page 11

A small step for elms

By

KEN COATES

don

in Lon-

The first step in a bid to help restore the elm to the British countryside has been taken with the planting of six disease-re-sistant elm trees in Essex. It has been made by the mailing and paper-hand-ling group, Pitney-Bowes, Ltd. at its headquarters at Harlow. The company hopes that eventually it will lead to an ‘•'elms across Europe” campaign. In the last 10 years, about 15 million British elms — including almost all in England and Wales — have died of Dutch elm disease. Uncounted millions have been killed by the disease in Europe. Mitsui, the Japanese international corporation, is organising a similar scheme to bring several thousands of elm saplings of different strains from

Japan and North America. It is distributing them among local authorities all over Britain. Pitney-Bowes says the strain it has planted is believed by the Forestry Commission to have the best chance of survival. On October 15, the company will plant six sapp o r o autumn gold saplings, developed in Wisconsin from the seed of a Siberian elm growing in the garden of a Japanese university. There was every' reason to suppose the trees would do well, said the senior research officer of the Forestry Commission, Dr John Gibbs. They had proved resistant to the strain of fungus which had killed most of Englands elms, he said. He warned that the oldest tree in America was still only 15 years old.

Some other types bred to resist Dutch elm disease had proved susceptible to other killer diseases. The sapporo strain is not as big as the trees which have dominated the British skyline in the past. But it has characteristics, such as its fine pale gold autumn colouring, which should make it a fine addition to the landscape. Forestry experts are wary' of repopulating Britain with a single species which might fall prey to some future disease.

If the new tree proves a success, they estimate it would take 50 years at least to replace the 15 million elms already lost. But British farmers, in whose hedgerows most elms grew, are unlikely to support full-scale replacement. While they are attractive, valuable for timber, and useful for shelter, they keep the sun off sections of growing crops and harbour pests and diseases which invade fields.