Fight to curb willow disease

Press, 5 April 1989, Page 44

Fight to curb willow disease

By

TONY VERDON

in London Willow growers and cricket bat manufacturers will unite to fight a creeping willow disease which threatens the countryside and Britain’s $42 million cricket bat industry.

They will meet next month to organise a levy to fund research into the infection, known as watermark disease. About 400,000 willow clefts are used every year in Britain or exported to New Zealand, Australia, India and Pakistan. Industry sources in Britain have suggested that a 42 cent levy on each one would produce $170,000 in research money. The disease has caused extensive damage to willows on the Continent. Work on the infection is being led by Dr John Turner, a senior plant pathologist in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia.

“This has become a national disaster in the

Netherlands and we are trying to develop diseaseresistant trees by a process of genetic engineering to prevent the same thing happening here,” he said.

“I think it is possible but it is a long-term job, because the trees take 15 years to mature. The disease has been known here for some time.” But Dr Turner said urgent action was needed before the situation got beyond control.

The disease has affected white bat willows in Essex, Suffolk and Bedfordshire, where 85 per cent of the world production is grown. “Cricketers love a good white bat but the disease stains the wood which loses its strenght and resilience,” said Dr Turner. “That makes it useless for bat manufacture.” He said the infection was slow-spreading and difficult to eradicate. It had been kept in check by felling but had now spread to the weeping willow.