The cause of laurel wilt

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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A bit esoteric, but here’s the story:

ASHEVILLE, NC – Scientists with the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS), Iowa State University, and the Florida Division of Forestry have provided the first description of a fungus responsible for the wilt of redbay trees along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

In the February issue of Plant Disease, SRS plant pathologist Stephen Fraedrich and fellow researchers provide results from their assessment of the fungus, the beetle that carries it, and their combined effect on redbay and other members of the laurel family, including sassafras, spicebush, and avocado.

Extensive mortality of redbay, an attractive evergreen tree common along the coasts of the southeastern United States, has been observed in South Carolina and Georgia since 2003. Though the wilt was at first attributed to drought, the cause was soon found to be a fungal pathogen and the exotic redbay ambrosia beetle, Xyleborus glabratus, a native to Southeast Asia that was first found in the area in 2002. Many ambrosia beetles carry species of fungi as food for their larvae; a previously undescribed fungus in the genus Raffaelea is a fungal symbiont of this ambrosia beetle.