Worry about wood of the willows

Press, 30 July 1986, Page 36

Worry about wood of the willows

London correspondent

The summer sound of leather on willow may soon be silenced. Willow trees in Essex, from which most of the world’s cricket bats are made, are being attacked by an incurable bacterial disease.

“Watermark disease,” which has run rampant in Europe, stains and weakens willow timber. It is caused by the bacterium Erwinia sallcis, a disease which so far has no cure even though extensive research has gone into the problem.

Even those trees in Essex that survive the disease are now being damaged and stained by modern farming chemicals.

“Watermark disease” was first discovered in Essex in 1921. Since 1933, the Essex County Council

has ordered the burning of affected trees.

Rigorous inspection programmes have reduced the annual number of diseased trees from a peak of 2000 in 1959 to about 300 a year now. But the battle is being fought by only two county tree inspectors and, with local government staff cuts in operation, their eventual replacement is unlikely. Leading cricket bat manufacturers such as Duncan Fearnley, Stuart Surridge (100,000 bats between them each year) and J. S. Wright all use Essex willow but the quantities of top quality stock available are dropping. Mr Christopher Price, of J. S. Wright, says without proper county council inspection the problem could lead to the end of the traditional combination of leather on willow.

“There would have to be an alternative material — another wood, perhaps, like poplar, or another look at past suggestions such as the bat made of aluminium and filled with polysterene,” he said.