Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 68: The New Disease Killing Our Trees
Unlock the secrets of nature conservation and learn how to protect our ecosystems from the threat of invasive species. Join us as we feature Mackenzie from the Invasive Species Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, who shares invaluable insights on managing invasive species across Canada. Through engaging discussions, you'll discover how government partnerships and community collaboration play a crucial role in safeguarding our environment and preserving native ecosystems for future generations.
Explore the challenges and complexities of combating tree diseases such as oak wilt and beech leaf disease. From identifying the beetle vectors responsible for spreading oak wilt to understanding the intricate relationships between trees and fungi, we cover it all. With valuable stories from municipal forestry experts and real-world examples from regions like Windsor and Niagara Falls, this episode emphasizes the importance of awareness, preventative measures, and community involvement in managing these ecological threats.
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Speaker 3:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people. That will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. Okay, welcome to the show. All Same, as always, we thank the listeners that are out there, those in Switzerland and Ghana and Trinidad and Tobago, and the States and all through Canada, of course, and around the world.
Speaker 3:And you know, I was out this morning with Gunnar those that don't know, gunnar is my chocolate black lab or chocolate black lab, chocolate lab and we're out finding all sorts of new stuff. Out there I found a bunch of birch polypore and turkey tail and things like that. It was a nice flush of turkey tail, but some of the things to watch out because it's still in November. Here we are into the first week, end of November, end of the first week of November, and there's ticks out there. So you got to watch out and make sure that you do tick prevention and things like that.
Speaker 3:Not only that, but recently did a chaga harvest with my son, garrett, who we talked a bit about, and seeing all kinds of stuff that we normally don't see. About 10 hours north of where we are here in Oshawa, just east of Toronto, and you head about 10 hours north and we're seeing mountain ash trees and all sorts of stuff there that we had not really seen there, but those things kind of get us around. But today we have a guest from McKenzie, and McKenzie tell us a bit about yourself and your organization. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much for having me today, jerry. I am a forest invasive specialist at the Invasive Species Centre. We're located in Sault Ste Marie, ontario, and we're a non-profit organization. Our goals are really to spread knowledge and information technology and management information on all kinds of invasive species, from taxa in mammals, fish, plants any species that you want to talk about we can cover it.
Speaker 3:So you're in Sault Ste Marie, which is just for international listeners. So people get an understanding around the world of where Sault Ste Marie is, say from Toronto.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely, it's about eight hours driving from Toronto, but I really like to describe Sault Ste Marie as being located right in the middle of the three bigger Great Lakes. That's kind of I say we're the heart of the Great Lakes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know the Sioux, as we call it very well. My dad's from the Sioux. We've got a lot of relatives up there, some camps up there that we attend regularly, so we've got a lot of friends up in the Sioux. Now the Invasive Species Centre Centre does that work directly with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry or is it a separate entity?
Speaker 4:We are a separate entity, so we're a non-profit organization, but we were actually developed in 2011 by a group of kind of government agencies that really wanted to do some more work in the province and across Canada on invasive species some more work in the province and across Canada on invasive species. So Natural Resources Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency came together to fund and create our organization to do this work on the ground.
Speaker 3:So it's a non-profit, and so I imagine the organizations you mentioned being the CFIA Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry now, along with the other ones, are the ones that are basically the funding body that provides the funds to be able to allow you to do the research needed, right research needed right?
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely. And to do our outreach and community engagement work as well. Our website, species profiles, fact sheets and all of those things and we also do a lot of work ourselves to contribute to that funding, looking for additional granting opportunities that can support our work as well. So we're doing a little bit of extra work on the side to kind of help sustain our organization in that way.
Speaker 3:So yourself, mackenzie, what sort of background do you have, or education do you have in this specialized field that you deal with?
Speaker 4:I actually grew up in Sault Ste Marie, so I was happy to be able to find a role in my field back in my hometown and to be working with the forest as well. I really I'm quite an outdoors person and spend a lot of time in the forests of Northern Ontario. But when I I traveled away to university to the city of Ottawa, where I spent about six years there studying biology, and I specialized in ecology and evolution at the University of Ottawa, so I really I kind of got an interest in just how species evolve and co-evolve in their new environments. And invasive species really fit that bill really well kind of coming into a new environment, evolving and adapting in a way that they're able to overcome many of the native species that have lived in the region for generations. So getting this role really fit with my goals, I guess.
Speaker 3:Oh, very good, Now those that visit the zoo. I know it's a bit of a shameless plug, but you got to stop at Wacky Wings. It's a regular for us when we're up there. Normally when my sons and I are up, well, it's usually in the fall, so the football season's on. So Monday night and Thursday night or Sunday nights you might find us there enjoying some wings and watching some of the games up there. But it's a nice spot in the Sioux and there's a lot of great things that happen in the Sioux there. But it's a nice spot in the Sioux and there's a lot of great things that happen in the Sioux. So, mackenzie, tell us about this new disease infection that's hitting oak trees or about to hit oak trees in the province of Ontario.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so oak wilt is quite an interesting species. So when I talk about oak wilt that's kind of the descriptor of the disease. But it's caused by a fungus called Brutziella phagocerum. So this fungus kind of gets within the tree through things like a pruning wound it could be through wind damage or things like that where you get an open access to the bark and kind of inner cambium of the tree where the spores can get into the tree and then they'll start to develop a fungal pod which will eventually limit access of transport of both water and nutrients throughout the transport system of the tree. So that's kind of what causes the characteristic oak wilt, the wilting of the oak leaves, is that it's not. The leaves of the canopy aren't getting adequate water and nutrients as they should because of this kind of fungal blockage that they're experiencing.
Speaker 3:Okay, so it's a kind of fungal blockage that they're experiencing. Okay, so the spores come in now. Different funguses actually will produce spores at various times of years. For example, reishi is more a May June, same as morels and things like that. Is there a certain time of year that this fungus will be more active in putting spores out in the environment?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the high risk times of year for oak wilt spread are really from April until November, which is quite a wide range of the year, I understand, but it's due to a couple of reasons A, as you mentioned, due to the timing of the fungal spore spread, but also due to their insect vectors. So there's a lot of research going on as to these beetles that help to transport the spores and what the timing of their activity looks like. So, even as I've worked on oak wilt over the last five or six years, these timings have changed as we have gotten more information about them. So I think when I started, the timings were like April to July or even April to June. It was quite a shorter time period, but as we're learning more about how the fungus reproduces and how the beetles are spreading it, these timelines have changed.
Speaker 3:Is there a specific type of beetle? Like you have your emerald ash borer beetle that obviously attacks, as it says, ash trees. But is there a specific type of beetle spreading the spore around, or is it just beetles in general?
Speaker 4:No, there is a specific type of beetle which is actually a really interesting piece of oak wilt spread. So they're called Nididulid beetles, which is the family name. So they're called Nididulid beetles, which is the family name. Some species in this family are seemingly better vectors of oak wilts than others. This research is ongoing to kind of pinpoint these specific species. But these beetles are sap feeders. They're also called picnic beetles, so they're really attracted to that kind of sweet fruity smell of the sap. So that's why they're attracted to those open wounds on the oak tree and also attracted to the fungal mats that are produced by oak wilt infected trees, because these fungal mats give off like a it's described as a juicy fruit scent of the juicy fruit gum. So it's really that sweet, fermenty, uh scent that people can smell.
Speaker 3:but also the beetles are quite attracted to so is it just because, obviously, if you're talking saps, there's maple sap, there's birch sap, there's a number of other trees that produce walnut sap, et cetera, et cetera? Are there other trees that are affected by this, or is it just targeting oak trees?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's typically oak trees, but there is a little bit of indication seen in the United States, where this disease has been around a little bit longer, that there has been some impact on chestnut trees as well, which is quite unfortunate since, if you're aware, chestnut trees have gone through their own invasive species story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I met other individuals, foresters, that were trying to tell me that actually they were seeing emberlash, boar beetles in black cherry trees, which I didn't really believe, but that's why I was wondering if there was some other the trees. So you are seeing in the states that they are affecting some of the other, like chestnut trees. Now is it just the American or is it the English chestnut as well, or both?
Speaker 4:I believe that and I'd have to look it up for sure to know. But I believe that it was just the American chestnut and this was only seen in a couple of individual locations. So that's not a widespread occurrence and I think research is still ongoing about the chestnut connection. But typically we're looking at red oak, white oak, bur oak. Red oak is the most susceptible and white oak is the least susceptible, so there is also a gradient within the oak species itself yeah, because there's quite a few now.
Speaker 3:A lot of municipalities are planting more than just the red and the white oaks that. I'm seeing a lot of different strains of oak, are you so? They're all being affected, or just the red oak is the one that's targeted now, or the one that's a preferred species for the beetle and the other ones are not so much so? Is there some oak trees that are that are resistant to this?
Speaker 4:I wouldn't say resistant, but that is part of it is that white oak trees are. It's not about what the beetles are going to more often or anything like that, it's more so, uh, the tree's ability to combat the disease. So white oaks have kind of this system within their vascular structure that they can kind of balloon out their vascular tissue to make a blockage and that blockage will will section off a diseased part of the tree. So it can kind of compartmentalize the disease, whereas red oak trees don't have this capability within the species. So when they get infected with oak wilt it's really free flowing throughout their vascular system and can spread much more quickly. So a red oak can be killed in a matter of six weeks if the infection is severe enough, where a white oak sometimes a white oak won't even die if it's infected. Oftentimes you won't even see a fungal mat.
Speaker 3:Interesting times. You won't even see a fungal mat. Interesting Now. I was with some individuals that brought this to my attention and they believe that it was through the ground that a lot of it was transmitted. So are you familiar with our buscular fungus and how it interrelates with trees?
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, and that's a great point because that is underground spread is the secondary method of spread for this disease, so that's absolutely right. In Ontario right now we're mostly focusing on that above ground spread pathway because oak wilt's not present here in the ecosystem. We don't really have anything below ground to prevent. But we are working on training arborists and tree care professionals on what that management situation would look like to deal with the underground spread once it arrives here, and that is quite extensive trenching, root severing and a lot of really management planning.
Speaker 3:Which in the larger oak trees, which? Well, what's the average lifespan of an oak tree?
Speaker 4:Yes, they're quite long. I don't know the number, but they're very long-lived trees and especially in urban areas, this can become quite difficult when you're trying to work around things like sewer systems and water mains and all those types of things in an urban environment, when you're trying to disrupt the root system of a hundred-year-old oak tree.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have that one call system in Ontario where I kind of call to find out if there's any lines and pipes and all those kind of things you know whether it's hydro, whether it's phone, whether it's underground gas lines and that they have a one-call system.
Speaker 3:I can imagine the one-call system would rather find it strange if people were calling to find out about their trees their oak trees to see a doing about a dig Now, Mackenzie, maybe you can just kind of give our listeners a better understanding of what an arbuscular relationship is as relates to underground fungi connections with trees.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so even just the trees themselves. They connect underground through these fungal networks. They connect underground through these fungal networks, so the fungal networks help the trees to spread nutrients to each other, even things like defense mechanisms. So it's a really, really important part of the active tree living network that's happening in your forests. But this is also a pathway that things like these infectious fungal spores can spread through. So, unfortunately, if one red oak tree is infected, then we have to look at all of the oak trees within a certain vicinity and there is some calculations that are laid out to be able to kind of estimate what trees may be infected or at risk of being infected and others that may be okay, or kind of like keep an eye on this tree, kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:But it's definitely a big issue with this species that underground spread once it arrives. This species that underground spread once it arrives and you can see sorry, I have some photos in my presentations that I use that you can actually see a gradient of mortality of the oak trees through this underground process. So it's like the edge of the forest boundary is kind of where the infection started and as you move more and more into the forest you can see that gradient of death.
Speaker 3:So, mackenzie, you mentioned that there was arborist training, and what does the center do to notify even, for example, municipalities? Because municipalities, when they're planning their streetscapes and their deciduous and coniferous forests throughout their municipality, they try to get a balance. But when trees are coming in, if they get notification that look, there could be potential problems with red oak, but you're better off with white oak, it kind of sends a notice. So do they get notification to watch out this sort of thing and take a look? And the same for arborists who are out there doing all the work. Do they get notification for it as well?
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely. So this is kind of a really great, I think, point for the ISC because we've been doing this work since, I would say, 2017. And Oakville just arrived in Ontario for the first time in 2023. So we have been doing a lot of connecting with those municipal forestry staff. There have been pruning regulations in places like the city of Windsor and the city of London, for sure that I could say off the top of my head that they've had these regulations in place since 2018 probably. So municipalities have kind of been on that leading edge of this species and, unfortunately, municipalities are often faced with much of the burden of the cost of invasive species once they do arrive. So they're really engaged in doing the preventative work also.
Speaker 3:And so what sort of options other than the pruning time is there? Because I know at one point I think, for the emerald ash borer beetle they were doing injections in the trees and any of the trees that I have to tell you that the city of Oshawa injected to kill the borer beetle off. I know they were not successful from what I saw.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so unfortunately in Canada there's no well, I shouldn't say in Canada, there's no curative treatment available in North America for oak wilt. There is a preventative treatment that's available in the United States that's not currently available in Canada. I think it may be investigated if it does establish here, but I think that it's not a curative treatment, like I said. So I think our best investment right now is to be educating those people, like you mentioned, that are doing that municipal work, that are going to see trees in urban environments, like the arborists and the landscape people. It was actually the first, one of the first three identifications of this disease in Ontario. One was identified by an arborist who attended a property to take down three dead oak trees. That somebody just called and said hey, I've got these dead trees in my yard, I'd like you to take them down. And the arborist was able to identify that it was oak wilt and report it, and that was one of the first detections. So they are a really, really important piece of this puzzle.
Speaker 3:And whereabouts was that located? Was it Windsor again?
Speaker 4:No, actually that's. Another interesting piece is we did a lot of our main outreach in the Windsor area and that kind of really southern part of Ontario because there were pockets of oak wilts right across the border in Detroit but we were actually finding it in the Niagara Falls area first because there were some more recent detections across the border there in New York. So this species, one of the main ways that we think it's being spread is through firewood, so people not realizing that they're transporting potentially infected wood or not knowing about regulations. So that's another piece of outreach that we do is we really push the don't move firewood message and the buying local, burning local, and that's important to not just oak wilt spread but all forest invasive species.
Speaker 3:So is this fungus that's attacking? Is it temperature sensitive so it dies off in the cold weather?
Speaker 4:Not, it will die off in the cold weather, usually in the fall time. That's when you'll see the fungal mats and that's kind of the end of the tree's life when those fungal mats are seen. Life when those fungal mats are seen. So then again, once that tree dies, the fungus is still living under the ground in the root system. So that's kind of the major issue. There is the soil kind of insulates that root system and allows the fungus to live and continue to spread, although of course spread will slow during the winter months and it's a kind of slower spreading fungus as it is, but nonetheless it's still living down there.
Speaker 3:So what does this fungal mat look like and how do you identify it? For anybody of our listeners who want to figure, I've got oak trees and what is that? What are they looking for and how does it look and how do they identify it?
Speaker 4:So I would say the very first thing to look for is the bronzing of the leaves and early leaf drop.
Speaker 4:So if you're seeing leaves that are looking like maybe not even a fall oak tree, it's kind of like a brighter orange color earlier than the fall Okay, then you might start having a problem. The other thing is if you're just experiencing canopy loss, branch dieback in your red oaks specifically, that can be a major contributor. Unfortunately, again, there are a lot of things that do look like oak wilt natural diseases until it progresses to a point where you can really easily identify the fungal mat. So we really encourage anybody that suspects they have oak wilt on their properties or they see something in a park when they're out or really anywhere they are, to report it, even if it doesn't end up being a positive oak wilt detection. We always say it's better to have a negative and have people engaged in and knowing they're looking for this species and it not being it than to have it be missed and end up spreading further and be kind of uncontrollable. So we're really on that early detection piece right now.
Speaker 3:So where did this oak wilt originate from? Where does it start from?
Speaker 4:That's a really great question as well. They believe that it originated in the US, that it's been in the US since like the 1940s. It's been identified and it's present from like Michigan all the way through to Texas and East. So it's quite widespread in the States and they had quite a hard time identifying for certain what the origin of this species was. There are some I wouldn't even say similar because it's not a similar species, but similar oak wilt diseases elsewhere in the world, like there's a Japanese oak wilt, but they're not related species. So it does really look like this originated at least in North America.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, that's interesting.
Speaker 4:Yes, but again, like I said, there's not a targeted pinpoint on where the origin is.
Speaker 3:Interesting. So the best thing that people can do is just to kind of give a site, so the people who have nice oak trees around, and what do they look for and how do they and where do they report it to? To the municipality, to Invasive Species Center or where?
Speaker 4:Yeah, there are a couple of places you can report to. If you are kind of a naturalist yourself and you use iNaturalist, or are an invasive species expert already and you use the invasive species reporting app Edmaps, those are two great easy ways to report. As soon as you make your report, this is a priority species, so it will be triggered to the correct authorities, which would be the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and that's your other good option be the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and that's your other good option is just to report directly to the CFIA. What will happen after a report is made is the CFIA will actually send a technician to your location to take a sample, a branch sample of the tree that you suspect is infected, and they'll take it back to their lab and do a genetic analysis on the sample to determine for sure whether or not it is oak-welds Because, like I said, it's quite difficult to know for sure based on similarities with native species.
Speaker 3:Right. So, and some of the best things to do is not prune your trees between April and November. So December to March is the pruning time, and now that would be the same.
Speaker 4:Go ahead. Sorry, I was just going to say so. Yes, now is a great time for arborists or tree care workers. Start pruning your oaks now, and it's just oak trees. Maple trees are fine to prune year round.
Speaker 3:Just oak specifically for this, this disease interesting anything else you can tell us about oak wilt that the people out there should be aware of or need to know about?
Speaker 4:um, I guess just thought we really, I think and I've reiterated this through our conversation here but, um, prevention is really important for this species and awareness um. So us at the ISE we're really trying to target um the audiences that we can, you know, the forestry sector, municipal sector, um, but also just having people living their daily lives know about this species and knowing what to look for, because it really can come up anywhere and it would be a really really big loss to not only our ecosystems here but the forest industry in Ontario and a really big burden on municipalities themselves to be doing the management. So, yeah, I think, just do what you can and know about the invasive species that are threatening your area and try to get involved as much as you can, because it really it does impact all of us at the end of the day when these species get established on the landscape.
Speaker 3:Well, that's very informative and I hope a lot of people and municipalities pick up on that because it can affect a lot and, quite frankly, the way municipalities are planning is certainly. Obviously a burr or white oak is a far better way to go to plant, from what I'm hearing here.
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Speaker 5:Rob can you tell us about it? Yeah, I've used it on blemishes, cuts, just basically all around healing Anything kind of blemish. It speeds it up really quick, Great Speeds the healing process up really well. It leaves no marks and doesn't stain or smells okay.
Speaker 3:Okay, thanks, rob, appreciate that. You're welcome. We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom site. Chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY, c-a-n-o-p-y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode. Cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode. Mackenzie. I'm not sure if you're familiar with another one. I have my own tree in my yard. We've got a maple tree out front which I believe is a Norwegian maple.
Speaker 4:Okay, that has black spot on the leaves. Okay, I'm not sure, but if it's a Norway maple, those are actually also sometimes considered to be invasive species.
Speaker 3:Oh really.
Speaker 4:Which is a lesser known, but I think they're not a true maple and they have some characteristics that they're not really great. In a windstorm they can have some breakage. So not really an answer to your question, but an invasive species aside.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no problem. No, I'm just. I thought the municipality told me that's what it was. Although, yeah, well, it likely is because municipalities have been planting both Norway and Manitoba maples for quite a long time both Norway and Manitoba maples for quite a long time, but in the leaves have this it's a definite black spot that has spread from tree to tree and now I see it all over the city, everywhere and I imagine birds spread it. But you're not familiar with what this black spot would be.
Speaker 4:No, I'm not familiar. I would guess again some kind of fungus.
Speaker 3:Right, would guess again some kind of fungus, right? Yeah, because it seems that, um, I would think so because when we first know we've been in the house for 25 years and never really noticed it when we first moved in but now the, the leaves, actually don't really change color. They kind of they kind of wilt and dry up before they change their what used to be brilliant colors, but not so much anymore.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and what's interesting about these fungal diseases too, is they can sometimes be impacted by, I'd say, especially native fungal diseases can be impacted by weather patterns. So you know, having a wet spring or a dry spring will impact how much of these fungi are out on the landscape.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, mackenzie, are there other diseases that are around that are coming and affecting other trees that people should be aware of or informed about that? Watch out for this and watch out for that sort of thing watch out for that sort of thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think another big one that I'm concerned about in my work is, I guess, a twofold beach leaf disease and beach bark disease. Beach bark disease I'm sure many people are familiar with in Ontario and beyond. It's been in Canada for quite a long time and spreading kind of slowly west across and is in Ontario now and the killing front is kind of going through central Ontario now and beach leaf disease is now present on the landscape in really the same region that this killing front is going through and I'm anticipating a lot of stress on the beech trees in particularly that central part of Ontario in the coming years. So we do have a new beech leaf disease monitoring network that we've started to kind of get a grasp on where this species is located and we're doing some more outreach on beach bark disease through that program as well. So really hoping to just get some resources as we can to the people that need it, that are managing beach bark disease, and to fill those mapping gaps in for beach leaf disease.
Speaker 3:So how do you identify these beach bark and beach leaf disease?
Speaker 4:Yeah, beach bark disease is kind of a, so it's a complex of two species that cause the disease A beach scale, which is a tiny little insect that essentially makes a nick in the bark of the beech tree.
Speaker 4:That allows the fungus to get into the tree, similar to the oak story, and it creates kind of cankers on the tree and will have a red and yellowing over the season. Visible fungal spores on the bark as well. They're kind of like very identifiable fungi. The beech bark disease and then beech leaf disease is also quite identifiable. You can see it in the leaves, as the name suggests, but it's caused by a nematode that feeds between the leaf veins, so it looks like the leaves are striped in these diseased trees. So again, it's pretty easy to distinguish when you see it on the landscape. So hopefully again, getting this information out to the public will help again identify where these species are for us and help support the research that's ongoing. Beach leaf disease is quite a new species. In general, it's a newly described species and was first identified in about, I think, 2017. So we're really in a learning and research stage of this species too.
Speaker 4:So not many management options, unfortunately, to share.
Speaker 3:Right? Is it all strains of beech or is it because I know there's bronze beech and a number of other strains? So is it the same? Or is it like oak, where certain ones have more resistance than others?
Speaker 4:Yeah, again, I think the research is ongoing in this. It does seem to be primarily American beech it's seen in, but I think from what I've heard there have been noticeable impacts in some other species. But, like I said, research in that area is still ongoing.
Speaker 3:Interesting. And is it certain size of the trees and same for the oak wilt? Is the small trees not so much as the larger trees or is it all trees same with oak and the beech?
Speaker 4:Yeah, for oak wilt I think I would say any size. The factor for the oak wilt is kind of that um the wound that will allow the fungus to get in. The beach leaf disease primarily impacts um saplings. So you'll see, it does impact all growth stages, but saplings um die more often than older trees. And then beach bark disease is the opposite is that you see more mortality in the older trees and they become kind of more susceptible to other, even native, pests. So they often see a quite quicker decline as they age.
Speaker 3:Okay, so this is what's going to happen now. Now, tomorrow, when I'm taking my chocolate lab out for his run, I'm going to take some images of some beech trees that look like they are just filled with warts and cankers and all kind of stuff and I'll send that those images, through to the invasive species center, or where do I send that for identification?
Speaker 4:so you could send them to um. You could send them to the invasive species center. You could send them to um, the early detection mapping system. You can just report that online um. Beach bark disease. I I'd have to check. If you can, I'm sure you could report that directly to the CFIA as well. But there might be different steps than oak wilt because there is a different priority level there. Right, yeah?
Speaker 4:this would be good I would say, the best, easiest way to report things like that that are already present here on the landscape, that that are already present here on the landscape. So beach bark disease, beach leaf disease, any kind of invasive vegetation like Japanese knotweed, dog strangling vine, buckthorn either iNaturalist or your early detection and distribution mapping system are your best ways to report those things. I use those mapping systems all the time in my work to look at where species are located, where there's pockets of invasive species, where we can target our work. So any way that people like you out walking your dog can add to that data is really helpful to the people that are doing the research. It seems like maybe a simple two minutes to take a picture and do your report, but at the end of the day it really is very helpful to us and the more people that do it, the more helpful it is.
Speaker 3:So where is this early identification mapping? Is that on the Invasive Species Center site?
Speaker 4:Yes, you can find. Actually you can find the links on the Invasive Species Centre website to any reporting resource in your province. We have a reporting page that has the link to EDMAPS, the Early Detection Distribution Mapping System, as well, as you can find your province and any specific reporting systems that they may use there. So I would refer people there, especially if you're outside of Ontario and not sure how to report, because this has been quite Ontario centric. But yeah, that's a good resource for people to check out as well, and our website is just wwwinvasivespeciescentreca.
Speaker 3:Okay, now you mentioned dog strangling vine. Do you have a lot? Now you mentioned dog strangling vine. Do you have a lot of background and with dog strangling vine?
Speaker 4:um, I don't know if I would say a lot. I have a little bit of background in dog strangling vine. Um, I do know that it's. It's quite a a nuisance, I would say, in southern and eastern ontario, particularly in wooded areas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I find it along the edge of. We find it all over the place now and I try to control it by when I'm out running my chocolate lab. I will pull it in the springtime before it goes to seed pods, because I know in the fall probably last month when he goes through, it's kind of almost like a milkweed sort of a seed?
Speaker 4:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3:But it ends up in the dog's eyes, in the corner of the eyes all the time and I'm pulling the seeds out of the corner of the eyes. Yeah, is there certain things that you can?
Speaker 4:I was just going to say, your pets are sometimes a major pathway of spread for invasive plant seeds like that. You're aware that dog strangling vines and invasive plants, so you're trying to combat that. But other people may not have that same knowledge base and then, incidentally, you and your pets can be part of that spread of that species.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now I have a number of friends and I don't have the formula with me and it just came to mind where they use what is it? Salt vinegar and dish soap to spray things like that. That'll kill it. Are you familiar with that formula?
Speaker 4:I'm not super familiar with that, but I would be curious to hear how it works, what the regrowth looks like, because that's an issue a lot of the time with invasive species is that it's easy to kill them initially a lot of the time, but they're quite persistent and they typically will find a way to come back. A good example of that's Japanese knotweed and I believe dog strangling vine may be the same, but they can regenerate from like a tiny piece of a root or a stem or a leaf, or they will just that gets put in a piece of adequate soil and they'll be off to the races and growing into their own stand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it seems to be just more and more and more happening all the time. Is there? Is it some reason that? Or is it just that I'm becoming more aware of it and more people are becoming aware of these sort of things, that we're seeing more things like you mentioned the Japanese and the dog strangling vine and others?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that it's maybe a little bit of both.
Speaker 4:I think that outreach on invasive species in the last at least decade has increased significantly, especially as we've really seen the impacts and problems associated with it.
Speaker 4:I think here in Ontario, emerald ash Borer was kind of like the big turning point there when we saw the real impacts on the landscape from that. But yeah, I think that it's an ongoing conversation that we need to be having to make sure that A we can, like you said, get that information out to hear about. But there are also, with increased travel and increased imports and exports, those are also pathways of invasive species spread so kind of as our economy grows to a more global platform, these pathways are also going to increase. So things like e-commerce the Canadian Food Inspection Agency does some work on e-commerce, looking at sites that are maybe selling seeds that could be invasive that are brought, that you could buy on whatever Amazon or Etsy, whatever and have it brought into Canada just through your typical online shopping. So things like that definitely increase the likelihood of introduction of these species. But I think the awareness also helps to prevent that a little bit.
Speaker 3:So what sort of things does? Now, who is the CFIA, canadian Food Inspection Agency? I imagine they're the ones who actually set the guidelines, because I think emerald ash borbeetle, if I recall, first came into Windsor in contaminated skids. So what sort of preventatives are they doing, or how are they doing that to try and stop these sort of things from coming in?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great question. So there are things called phytosanitary directives that are put in place by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and they work with other international agencies to put these in place. But they're essentially movement restrictions on products that are associated with spread of certain species or even high-risk pathways in some cases high-risk pathways in some cases. But a good example is there was just a Canadian Food Inspection Agency phytosanitary directive out for comment. I believe it closed last week on a new directive for spotted lanternfly spread. So they're going to be looking to regulate movement of certain species and then have certain regulations in place for programs to help prevent and monitor for the spread of spotted lanternfly. So there are a lot of different things like that in place at different levels, whether that's international imports or just movement within a jurisdiction in the province.
Speaker 3:So what is this? I've never heard of spotted lanternfly.
Speaker 4:We keep going off on different species here.
Speaker 7:I know you mentioned these things.
Speaker 3:I've never heard of that one.
Speaker 4:No, that's okay. Spotted lanternfly is another interesting one, another easily identifiable one that we've had some incursions of here in Ontario, but it's not established yet. Similar case as oak wilt, but it's a plant hopper that impacts fruit orchards and grapevines primarily. It was first detected in Pennsylvania, I think in about 2012, and it really decimated the vineyards there and the wine industry has seen really devastating impacts by this pest and their operational costs have also increased significantly. So we're really targeting the Niagara region for mainly the wine industry, but also as primarily where we're thinking the detection is going to happen.
Speaker 3:Wow. Yeah, it's surprising and concerning to hear about all these different invasive species coming in and the impact that it's having on us as a whole, and I think some of it is. What we're trying to do here is inform people about some of the options and the do's and don'ts and how to try and to prevent or even stop some of the spread of these things. So simple things like pruning your trees at certain times of year, especially if they have a red oak as compared to, say, a white oak, which makes a huge difference for a lot of people.
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely, and that's a little thing that anybody that's doing tree pruning can do. That can help the greater cause and really a lot of invasive species are first detected by not people like me that know invasive species like first detected by not people like me that know invasive species like the back of my hand. It's regular people that are out walking their dog or on a hike with their kids that see something weird or out of the ordinary, that are picking their kids up from school. That's what happened with the most recent emerald ash borer detection in Vancouver. Somebody was just sitting on a park bench and a weird bug flew into them and they were like, oh, what is this? And looked into it a bit more and it was emerald ash borer and they ended up finding, um, where the initial detection or where the infestation was right um.
Speaker 4:So it's really just. This. Information is important just for everybody to know about and to be aware of, because everyone can help and, in the long term, prevention is like by far the most cost effective management option for invasive species because, at the end of the day, it's going to be the taxpayer that's going to be paying for a lot of the management of these species. Municipalities were burdened with much of the cost of emerald ash borer, and it's similar with many of these other invasive species coming to the landscape. They're having to manage invasive plants on their municipal properties. They're having to advise landowners in their communities on what to do as well. So I think that, at the end of the day, whether you're worried about your oak trees or your trails or the environment, or you're worried about what your taxes are going to look like at the end of the day, these are important issues.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's just it. It a lot of people don't realize. So how does it impact me and why should I care? Obviously you just mentioned exactly, and I know, that municipalities try to do plants, when they're planting trees and deciduous trees and coniferous, on a percentage basis to make sure that the canopy or the trees utilized, to call it, it's called canopy so that people understand that if there's obviously an impact like oak wilt, that the oak trees will be impacted and only hopefully 10% of the trees that are impacted in a municipality will be hit. But the end result is exactly like you said, mackenzie and that's taxpayer ends up paying for it, and the more that we can do to prevent that, the better off we are.
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely. And going back to Oakville, you know the city of Niagara Falls that did their first management with that first detection. Here we're working with them to get some secure numbers. But I mean we're talking tens of thousands of dollars for management of one initial detection that was just a couple of trees. So it's even just this rapid response that we're doing is expensive. So imagine if we had widespread management happening for this species.
Speaker 3:So yeah, exactly so, and that's how organizations like yours, providing information, to say look, if you're going to plant oak trees, don't plant red oak. Plant your white oaks or your burr oak and you'll have a less likelihood of having to replace them in the future date.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, and we do. Recently we have some new funding opportunities available as well for invasive species management work in Ontario available as well for invasive species management work in Ontario, which I think has really made a huge difference on the landscape as well in those communities that maybe want to control a species and funding is a barrier in First Nations communities that could use the funding to do some of the work they want to do. Even we started this funding as $1,000 micro grants and it's now expanded as we've gotten some increased funding and now we're able to offer, you know, multi-thousand dollar, multi-year project plans for these people to do invasive species management on the ground ground that's supported through the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and is a huge a huge, huge help to people doing that work.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks very much, mackenzie, for taking the time to be on the podcast today. I think we've learned a lot about that and I was able to kind of take you along, and about some of the other aspects of whether it's the strangling dog vine or some of the other things we mentioned that you've been able to enlighten us on, mackenzie. How do people find out more information or where can they get the details, or how do they get in touch with you to ask and where can they report these sort of things so that people know okay, we've got some issues here, let's deal with it. Here's where you go. How can they can do that.
Speaker 4:Mackenzie, yes, absolutely. I would direct you to check out our website, first and foremost at invasivespeciescentreca, and you can find contact information there. You can get through our info email address and then we'll have a staff member direct your question to the best expert that we have on staff, and otherwise I'd say you could contact me. My email is mdegaspero at invasivespeciescentreca and I'm also happy to answer any questions, of course, as I'm sure you saw, about invasive species.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you very much, Mackenzie. We really appreciate you taking the time to enlighten us about some of the other things out there that are happening out there in our forests and our landscapes, that people don't really realize how much they're actually impacting us on, the things that happen out there under the canopy. Thanks, mackenzie.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much, Jerry.
Speaker 3:Have a great day, you too. Bye now.
Speaker 7:Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm, now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
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