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Silver birch removal
Debster
Posts: 5
Looks like it's gone
0
Debster
Posts: 5
Debster
Posts: 5
Debster
Posts: 5
Posts
Have a silver birch with massive fungal infection that's died. Wanted to remove and plant young cherry and apple trees nearby but am worried about the persistence of fungal spores in the soil and the effect on subsequent planting. Any advice please?
Do we just not have to plant there when we ve removed the tree?!
Hi Debster, the bracket fungus may have been a secondary thing, so check if it was honey fungus which actually killed the tree. To do that, strip the bark off of the trunk at ground level. If you find a mass of bootlace-like threads running from the ground up the trunk, beneath the bark, that would indicate honey fungus and it would be inadvisable to plant another tree there or nearby. If you don't see anything like that and as long as you have the roots ground out, it would be relatively safe to plant another tree. Bracket fungi grow within the tree and don't spread through the ground, unlike the devastating honey fungus which will often go on to infect the whole garden (a single honey fungus can cover an area the size of several football pitches!)
This might be helpful http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=180 - the photos are useful aids to identification, they show the 'bootlaces' particularly well.
If you scroll down there's a link which gives some of the trees and shrubs which are more resistent than some to honey-fungus.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It's a fungus - it exists - this tells you how it spreads
The fungus spreads underground by direct contact between the roots of infected and healthy plants and also by means of black, root-like structures called rhizomorphs (often known to gardeners as ‘bootlaces’), which can spread from infected roots through soil, usually in the top 15cm (6in) but as deep as at least 45cm (18in), at up to 1m (3¼ft) per year. It is this ability to spread long distances through soil that makes honey fungus such a destructive pathogen, often attacking plants up to 30m (100ft) away from the source of infection. extract from RHS Advice linked to above.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.